A Decent Self-Insert, Probably
by wingedcatgirl
Summary: Tempest was quite surprised to learn that Kingdom Hearts was a true story. Especially since she learned this by her world falling to darkness. She also has a brother now, which is... new information. Keyblades in hand, the two set off to help Sora complete the Xehanort Arc, and to investigate an old rediscovered threat to the worlds. (Temporarily UNpaused.)
1. 1: Dive into the Heart

Self-insert warning: This is a self-insert. Don't read it if you hate self-inserts on principle.

Standard fanfic disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney, with the exception of its Final Fantasy elements, which belong to Square-Enix. I am not Disney or Square-Enix. Contrary to popular belief, mentioning this fact is not legally required, or meaningful in any way - but it's part of the culture, and who am I to deny the culture?

Canon note: This fic was written before the release of _Kingdom Hearts III_ , by someone who has never played _0.2_ or _2.8_ and stopped playing _X_ somewhere around mission 350.

Summary note: A bit after publishing Chapter 6, it occurred to me that the summary was a bit too jokesy for the fic I had actually written, and I decided to update it. For posterity, here is the original summary.

 _"So, your world has, completely coincidentally, created video games that perfectly map to events in this world? And you, the only person from that world to make it here, are a huge fan of those games? Wow, what are the odds?" "Assuming infinite time and space, the probability of this happening at some point is... uh, 1." "Oh, are time and space infinite, then?" "... presumably?"_

Last note I promise: I'm aware that this is a complete cliche, but - the fic gets better as it goes on. I guess that's inevitable when it's the only writing practice I've gotten in years? Anyway. Chapter 2 is much better, so I recommend sticking around at least that long if you're on the fence.

* * *

Everyone knows that their world will one day end. Most people secretly believe it will happen in their lifetime. Many even think they know _how_ it will end.

But almost nobody expects it to happen while they're at the bus stop.

My first sign that something was unusual was the earthquakes. We don't get them in this region. Of course, even if I had missed that, I wouldn't have missed the sundering of the earth and the encroaching flow of darkness.

After a few terrifying minutes (during which I clung to the bus shelter for dear life), all that was left was a little chunk of land, floating in the void. I took some deep breaths to calm myself, and tried to think rationally.

The first thing I wanted to do was contact... _anyone_ , really, and make sure they were okay. Unfortunately, my phone had zero signal. Though, oddly, it did have a full charge, despite having been at 80% before the world ended.

That having failed, then, I wanted to take stock of the situation.

Question one: what did I have? I had the clothes on my back. In my pockets I had a wallet containing some cash and various cards (all of which were probably worthless), a phone with zero signal but an inexplicably replenished battery, and my keys. I had a backpack, containing my umbrella, some headache medicine (which would last about two weeks if I got a headache every day, and expire in a year and a half if I didn't), and, due to a lucky spontaneous decision to stop by the library and grocery store on the way home, a book and some junk food.

Question two, what did I want? Well, number one, I wanted to _not die_. I wanted to avoid dying of starvation trapped on a tiny island floating in darkness, and if the darkness could harm me directly I wanted to avoid that as well. Thinking about it, this pretty much meant I wanted to get off this rock and back to civilization of some kind, if not _necessarily_ the one I had left behind. Which might not even exist anymore.

...On further thought, pretty much every meaningful goal at this point began with getting off this floating chunk. To save time I decided to call that my goal and think about further steps later.

Question three, how do I use what I have to get what I want? On this, I was completely stumped. There didn't seem to be any meaningful connection. I couldn't even _find_ a place to get to with the miscellaneous crap I happened to be carrying around.

I shook my head. But what I had _didn't_ end at what I was carrying. I had the floating chunk itself. I picked up a chunk of broken concrete and tossed it into the void. It flew normally, until it touched the surrounding void with a ripple, at which point it ceased obeying gravity and started drifting backward.

This confirmed several things I hadn't even realized I had noticed til just then. Most importantly, it confirmed that this floating chunk was _accelerating_. In fact, the rate of acceleration seemed to be gradually increasing.

Where it was accelerating to, I didn't know. I couldn't see anything in that direction. Well, I couldn't see anything in _any_ direction. The tossed rock had faded from my sight fairly swiftly, so it looked like my visual range was pretty limited.

... All I could figure was that space rocks don't accelerate on their own. Something must be causing this. Since the rate of acceleration was increasing, it was more likely I was moving closer to the source. It seemed the best option was to wait and see.

I sighed. I had no clue how long I would have to wait before anything happened. Or what I would do then. All I know was that it had already been a long day _before_ the world had blown up, and I desperately needed a rest.

I realized it was a bad idea, but neither that knowledge nor the cold hard ground could stop me from falling asleep then.

XXXXXXXXXX

A different island. The void was blacker and the floor was made of stained glass.

 _There is power within you._

Of course there was. There's power in everyone, if only they know...

 _... to use it._

Exactly.

 _Step into the light._

A patch of floor in front was indeed noticeably brighter than the rest of it. I obligingly stepped forward.

 _That's right._

The light in the rest of the floor seemed to be gathering into the bright spot, causing it to glow ever brighter, and at the same time leaving darkness behind.

 _You must draw out your power. Holding it inside you forever won't do any good._

I had always hated feeling helpless. Even though I was just one person, I always felt like I should be doing more. I touched my hand to my chest and felt something.

 _Right now your power is without form. Give it shape, and you can use it._

A shape... but what was I using it _for_? I didn't know. For the moment I figured any shape would do. A sword. I felt it, solid in my hands.

 _Good. But beware. There will always be those who seek to take it._

The darkness took form. Little shadowy creatures with glowing yellow eyes. One lunged, and I blocked it with the blade.

I blinked. Since I woke up in this place, I had been in a sort of dream state, but the impact of the attack had brought me to my senses.

"Am I... in a Dive to the Heart?"

 _Yes - but don't drop your guard!_

I whirled around and sliced at a Shadow that had almost snuck up on me. Clearly, I needed to focus on defeating these things before I interrogated the scenario.

Luckily, Shadows in real life are apparently just as dumb as in the games. I backed away to avoid being surrounded, blocked their overly slow and telegraphed scratches, and cut them down while they staggered.

When they stopped spawning and I destroyed the last one, the platform shined brightly.

 _Good. Now -_

"Hold up. Before we continue." I took a moment to look at the weapon I had summoned. It was, unmistakably, a Kingdom Key. "This is a Keyblade."

 _Indeed._

"I can't _just have_ a Keyblade. There needs to be a Bequeathing. Sora got hers - I mean, his from Ventus, and also accidentally stole Riku's. Riku got his from Terra, and maybe partly 'Ansem'? Kairi borrowed Riku's, and also accidentally got one from Aqua. Terra, Ventus, Aqua all got theirs from Eraqus... though Ventus might have gotten his from Xehanort instead, or additionally? ... This whole thing is weird, now that I think about it. But one constant is that nobody ever just had one _ex nihilo_."

 _Oh? No one?_

"... Well, I can't account for Eraqus, Yen Sid, Xehanort, or Lea. But Lea's probably came from Yen Sid, and the other three are old masters and probably got theirs from previous old masters that just never appeared on screen."

 _Oh? And where did these 'previous old masters' get their Keyblades? That can't just go back forever._

"... You are _not_ telling me I'm the progenitor of a new line of Keyblades. No way. I'm not."

 _You could be._

"Yeah, but I'm not."

 _... Okay, fine, you're not. But you could have been. There's no rule against it._

"Sure there isn't. ... Probably I shouldn't just hang around here forever. Better move on."

 _Indeed. But before we do... 'hers'?_

"Huh? Oh, that. Forget that, it's just a headcanon, no way it's true in... reality, I guess."

 _All right. Let's continue, then._

A path of light appeared, leading up to another platform. On the way up, I glanced back at the first platform.

With an elevated view I could now see the full pattern. It seemed pretty standard - an image of myself in that weird floating-sleeping position, holding the Kingdom Key.

... Really, I'm not sure what I had expected. I moved on to the next platform, wondering what exactly I was accomplishing at this point.

A glowing orb appeared several feet above the center of the platform.

 _You'll need to reach out with your power._

"Magic, right? ... Don't people normally learn this in the waking world?"

 _Normally. Sometimes it's necessary to do things differently, to ensure they get done at all._

"... I don't like what that seems to imply."

 _This is a dream. You're not supposed to be lucid enough to infer things like that right now._

"We've... kinda already established that I am. If you don't want me inferring things, be more careful about what you imply."

 _Sure. In the meantime, why don't you try magicking the orb already?_

"Hmm." Unsurprisingly, I did not, in fact, know how to use magic, on account of being native to a world where it did not exist. But this world seemed to operate on a looser sort of metaphysics, the kind woo-woo snake oil salesmen claimed powered their products, except here it _actually did_ work that way. Given that, I thought I might be able to improvise.

I closed my eyes  
and then immediately reopened them. Blinding myself willingly in a combat situation seemed like the kind of habit I would want to avoid forming.

I tried again. This time, keeping my eyes firmly open (a surprisingly difficult task), I took a breath and tried to feel the magical energy in my body. I gathered a portion of it, compressed it into a dense pebble, and flung it down my left arm, thrusting my hand at the orb.

"Stone!"

 _BOOM-_ _ **CLACK**_!

"...Ston _ja_? Interesting. I wasn't even trying to do that."

 _You are inside your own heart right now. Right next to the source of your power, it will be easier to use than normally._

"So you're saying that when I wake up, I'll be casting regular Stone for a few levels?"

 _Yes._

"Hmm."

 _It's time to move on._

Another path appeared. Again I ascended, pausing only to look back at the design on the second station.

"A bit predictable, this one."

 _The images on the stations come from your heart._

"Well, that explains the lack of subtlety."

This station was decorated with only three colors: blue, pink, and white. The foreground was a trans pride symbol, overlaid over a trans pride flag background.

"If this was my intro in a video game, this would be the part where players shriek 'we get it, she's transgender'. And then _that crowd_ would make videos gratuitously killing me off."

 _Well... then it's a good thing this isn't a video game?_

I snrk'd at that. Apparently, the voice had no idea. "Technically, I guess that's true."

 _Uhh... let's move on._

"Yes, let's do that."

I ascended to the third station. This had another odd glowing bit, which I approached.

 _Just remember, the closer you get to the light..._

I whirled around, knowing exactly where this was going - my shadow was stretching out behind me, growing into a Darkside.

 _... the greater your shadow becomes._

"Is this necessary?!"

The Darkside swung at me and I jumped back as its fist plunged into the ground.

"I guess, since this is a metaphor for my own darkness or whatever, it wouldn't be meet to skip it just because I already know how it works..."

Shadows started emerging from the pool of darkness.

"I mean, that might be misconstrued as implying I'm some kind of incorruptibly-pure person with no inner darkness at all. And in a world where Sora exists, and even he has inner darkness, that would be suspiciously unlikely..."

The Darkside pulled its fist out of the ground and began charging an attack.

"All the same, though..."

Orbs of darkness blasted into the sky, and the Shadows prepared to rush me.

"I'm _not really up for a boss fight right now_!"

I hurled my Keyblade, and it pinballed between the Heartless, unleashing bursts of magic in random elements.

 _Hey, be careful!_

This defeated the enemy remarkably quickly, and the Keyblade returned to my hand, but something felt wrong. I coughed, hard. Was that blood?

"Oh... I think I overexerted m..."

I couldn't even finish the word as the world faded with a distinct body-hitting-the-ground-with-a-thuddish sort of sound.

* * *

Fun fact: I forget the original source on this, but the mysterious voice in Sora's Dive into the Heart, back at the beginning of the first game, is confirmed to be Mickey. I remembered this randomly while writing this chapter, which got me thinking - the voice in Tempest's Dive into the Heart must belong to someone, right? So I thought about it for a while, and tried to figure out why and how Mickey might have been speaking to Sora in that context, and who might be speaking to Tempest in the same manner...

and that's why the final version of this chapter doesn't contain the phrase "recursion needs a base case".

Pairing note FROM THE FUUUUUUTURE: Sora/Riku/Kairi OT3 is canon to the fic, but won't ever really be the focus. Other than that, probably nothing! Unless something suddenly appeals to me out of the blue, somehow.


	2. 2: Making Munny

Self-insert warning: This is still a self insert. If you hate self-inserts on principle, and accidentally read an entire chapter focusing exclusively on a self-insert despite the warning at the beginning of _that_ chapter, and somehow you're still here... at this point, I just don't know what to tell you.

Standard fanfic disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts still belongs to Disney, with the exception of its Final Fantasy elements, which still belong to Square-Enix. I am still not Disney or Square-Enix. Pointing this out is still not legally required, or even meaningful, but it's still part of the culture, so I'm still doing it for that reason alone.

* * *

I sat up with a jolt. "Hold on, how the crap am I coughing up blood in... this..."

I looked around. I seemed to be in a perfectly ordinary guest room. While it was odd that I'd woken up in this place is never seen before, that was hardly grounds to expect that 'this place' could prevent me from coughing blood.

... I was pretty sure I hadn't been talking about this guest room, though. But what _had_ I been talking about? And why did it involve coughing up blood?

At this point, I noticed that my whole body was aching. This was probably connected to the allegedly impossible blood.

"Oh, good, you're awake."

"Meep?!" Somehow I hadn't noticed Aerith there. But it would have been weird to put a random unconscious girl in your guest room and then leave her unattended, so really, I should have known I wasn't alone.

"Oh, don't overexert yourself. You still need rest."

"That's definitely true," I said, lying back down. "What happened? I remember my world got eaten by darkness, and then... then I woke up here, complaining that it doesn't make sense to cough blood." I touched my mouth, then looked at my hand. Nothing. "Without, as far as I can tell, having actually coughed any blood."

"Well, when a world falls to darkness, some of its inhabitants may escape, by strength or by luck. This world, Traverse Town, is a refuge for those people. We found you unconscious and brought you here to recover. Of course, we don't know what happened before we found you."

I nodded, though she probably didn't see it since I was lying down. "So how long was I out, anyway?"

"We found you about a day ago. You had a bad episode a few hours ago, so you're not going anywhere for a while."

I obviously didn't remember that, having been unconscious, but there was something about it that seemed expected. I definitely needed a rest.

"My name's Aerith, by the way."

"I'm Tempest."

XXXXXXXXXX

Skipping past my recovery, and the part where I introduced myself to all the other Traverse Town residents, both of which went exactly how you'd expect...

I was indoors and sleeping for a while, so I lost track of time, but I think it was about two days later when I was back on my feet.

I had managed to learn that Traverse Town was originally connected to Radiant Garden, and at some unclear point in the recent past they had managed to get it reconnected. I still hadn't quite figured out what part of the timeline I had landed in, and wasn't sure how to narrow it down any further.

Which is why, for the moment, I was focusing on another problem.

"How exactly does one go about earning munny in this world if one is neither a merchant nor a slayer of Heartless?"

"Oh, there's all kinds of reconstruction that needs doing," Yuffie said, "but are you sure you don't want to slay Heartless? There's a lot of them, and we need all the help we can get."

"Well, I would, but there's a small problem of me not having a weapon... or much of any combat skill at all..."

"Oh, I can train you! Yuffie's Secret Ninja Training™ is the best combat training on this world!"

I blanched. Everything I knew about "ninja training" led me to expect comical injuries, constant exhaustion, and only a 50/50 chance of actually gaining any kind of skill from it. Doubly so for "secret" training, training named for the trainer, and training spoken in title case with a trademark symbol. "Mmmmaybe... or maybe Leon could train me?"

"... I think teaching suits Yuffie better."

"Hey, y'know who else is clearly a good teacher? Aerith, that's who."

"I don't think I'm proficient enough in combat to teach you, Tempest. In battle, I focus more on healing and support."

"Hey, what a coincidence, that's exactly the kind of battle skill set I'm good at!"

"Oh? I thought you didn't have combat skill."

"...in theory, I mean? Based on my temperament?" I couldn't very well say 'I'm a White Mage main in Final Fantasy XIV', which was my actual basis for that claim. Though I wasn't _lying_ either; I was pretty sure my temperament was part of the reason I favored that class.

"I think you're just trying to avoid my training." Yuffie glared at me, hands on hips.

"Nnnnoooo?" I said, not meeting her eyes. The glaring intensified. "I'm trying to avoid _any_ ninja training, not yours in particular."

"Ooh, Tempest! You are going to get the harshest ninja training a ninja has _ever_ seen!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Several grueling hours later, I was done. I had to give Yuffie credit - _every_ muscle in my body was thoroughly exhausted, including some I didn't know I had. Even my ear muscles were tired - only 10 to 20 percent of humans can use those muscles, and prior to today I had not been one of them. Not that I had any clue how this would be useful in battle.

"Tempest, you can't just lie on the training floor all night."

"Sure I can, if I try real hard and believe in myself."

"Maybe, but what I meant was, I need you off the training floor so I can prepare it for tomorrow's session."

"What."

"Yeah! Today was endurance day, tomorrow you'll be focusing on skill!"

"I see. Well now I'm _definitely_ not going anywhere."

"Grrrr! Don't think that'll get you out of it! I'll set it up around you anyway, _and_ you'll have missed two meals in the meantime!"

"Two... You mean I'll be training in the _morning_?!" I groaned. I was decidedly not a morning person.

"Yep! Bright and early! And you'd best be awake on time of you know what's good for you..."

"You're just tormenting me, aren't you? This is your revenge."

"Of course I'm not _just_ tormenting you. This is legitimate training!"

"Which you're putting me through as a form of torment."

"Well... I did say I wasn't _just_ tormenting you..."

I groaned some more. "I just wanted to earn munny so I could pay for my own groceries... I didn't earn anything today."

"Relax, I'll cover you til your training is complete. And when I'm through with you, you'll be busting Heartless like piñatas!"

XXXXXXXXXX

From her flippant tone when she offered, I had expected Yuffie to have no problem covering my expenses, but I was still surprised at just _how much_ not a problem it was for her. Apparently, slaying Heartless was a lucrative profession.

When I got a moment, I asked Cid where the Heartless got all the munny they dropped.

"Well... it ain't caused runaway inflation, so it's safe to say they aren't creating it. And nobody ever reports purse-snatching Shadows or pickpocketing Soldiers, so apparently they're not stealing it. Which kinda leaves only one possibility..."

"Oh."

Well. Heartless are dangerous. I guess I already knew that.

Skill day was less strenuous than endurance day, predictably enough, but also much more difficult. Day three was power training, which was a bit of a pain without a weapon. Day four was magic training, which I enjoyed even though it consisted largely of Merlin teaching me a basic spell and Yuffie ordering me to cast it two or three hundred times.

And then, surprisingly, Yuffie saw fit to give me a day off.

"Oh, come on, you know that your body needs to rest after strenuous training! That's just how it works!"

"Well, sure, but..." I had been starting to think _Yuffie_ didn't know that.

"But _what_ , Tempe?"

"Uhhhh never mind that thanks for the day off I'll see you the day after tomorrow!" And with that, I rushed out of her sight before she could press me any further.

So, after sleeping in until noon (though I had been aiming for 11... apparently I was more exhausted than I had realized), I

... could not think of what I wanted to do. My normal recreational activities had been consumed along with the Earth, and my phone, despite having its battery inexplicably infinitely charged, could hardly connect to an internet that presumably no longer existed and certainly was out of range.

So I decided to wander aimlessly while I thought about it.

Hollow Bastion had remembered its original name of Radiant Garden rather late in _Kingdom Hearts II_ , so I certainly couldn't have arrived any earlier than that point. Whether the events of _Dream Drop Distance_ had yet occurred was unclear.

... Thinking about it, the information available to me left a lot of things unclear. Most of Organization XIII had been destroyed at this point even for the earliest possible value of "this point". Though I couldn't remember very well which ones...

I definitely wanted to accomplish something meaningful here. The path my thoughts had taken made it clear what my first obstacle was - I first needed to learn the current state of the multiverse, so I could know what qualified as meaningful to begin with.

Apparently my feet had figured this out already, because when I looked up from my reverie, I realized that I was in front of Cid's gummi hangar.

"Hey there, kid, what's up?"

"If I wanted to buy a gummi ship, how much munny would I need to save up?"

"Well, almost nobody actually sells full gummi ships. The pieces are so easy to assemble that there's just no market for it. So you'd wanna buy the pieces individually.

"If you're gonna get anywhere, you'll absolutely need, bare minimum, a cockpit and an engine. Low-end engines have been cheap lately, but the cockpit'll run you a fairly hefty price.

"Realistically, you're also gonna want to add some weapons, armor and hull, and living quarters. Hull pieces are so damned plentiful that I'll just _give_ you a few crates, just to get 'em outta my storage space. Low-end weapons and armor are cheap, but the living quarters'll be another hefty expense."

As he'd been saying all this, he'd been scribbling on a piece of paper. "All in all... a ship that actually gets you anywhere is gonna run you about this much."

I blanched. The number written on the paper would take at least a month to collect, even if Yuffie covered my rent and groceries the entire time. And I spent every waking hour slaying Heartless. And never had to spend a single munny on potions or ethers.

"Now, you're probably thinking: is there some way off this world other than gummi ships? And the answer is, yes, but not a good one. There's the Corridors of Darkness, but those run through the dark realm and tend to eat at yer heart, so I wouldn't recommend 'em at all. Then there's the Lanes Between. I don't know much about those, on account of how you need a Keyblade to use 'em. Which sorta excludes you as well."

I felt an inexplicable flash of confusion at the back of my mind, but before I could think much about it he continued.

"That said, I'm willing to give you a head start on assembling your ship. See, there's materials I find myself in need of, and only Gummi Heartless carry 'em. Now, they're not hard to get, but I just don't have the time to get 'em myself. So I'd lend you one of my ships to go raid some of their fleets for the stuff. And any ship parts you might collect in the process - say, a cockpit or some living quarters - would be yours to keep. And even if you're not lucky enough to find what you need, I'd still pay you good for the actual job."

"That.. would work out well for me."

"I figured it would. I'll talk to Yuffie about easing up on your training a bit so you can work for me and still have a day to yourself. In the meantime, it's a bit late to get started today, so enjoy the rest of your day off."

And with that, I headed out and back towards my place. If I was lucky, I'd be able to assemble my own ship after just one mission. If not... well, it'd still take about a month, but I wouldn't be working non-stop during that month, so it's still an improvement.

Lost in thought as I was, I didn't notice a Corridor of Darkness opening, or the hooded figure stepping out of it, until I felt the hit right to my solar plexus.

"Your vacation just got extended, kiddo."

Completely winded, I was unable to resist or even protest as he dragged me by my arm into the portal, at which point I promptly passed out.

* * *

... I promise that chapter 3 will _probably_ end with something other than Tempest passing out. Hopefully.

Anyway. Reviews are welcomed, as always.


	3. 3: Into and Out of a Bad Situation

Disclaimer: Actually, the only reason I even had disclaimers was so that I could do the gag in chapter 2 where I had the same disclaimer but with the word "still" inserted a bunch of times. Now that I've done that, I'm assuming that anyone still here knows the deal and doesn't need to be informed again.

Note: The word 'entelechy' is used here as per what the Kingdom Hearts Wiki believes to be its English definition: a being with a heart, body, and soul. Which I distinctly recall Google agreeing with the _first_ time I checked, some years ago, but now it claims the word means something else... If there's been some kind of linguist drama in the fandom over this, _don't_ tell me about it.

Also, shoutout to the Google Docs devteam, who moved the italics button on the mobile app so now instead of tap italics on, type a word, tap italics off, I have to swipe down to bring back the top menu, tap the formatting menu button, tap italics on, back out of the formatting menu, type a word, back out of the keyboard, swipe down to bring back the top menu _again_ , formatting menu, italics off. All so they could fit _font size_ on the quick menu. Because people are constantly toggling to different font sizes on the go, don'tcha know. You couldn't have removed underline instead? Sigh.

If chapters 4 and on use bold for emphasis within sentences instead, this is why. Even though I don't like using bold for that.

* * *

When I came to, I couldn't move. Sleep paralysis, it seemed. That would be just my luck. Normally I would have freaked out about this, even knowing it would wear off shortly, but I was distracted by a conversation in the distance.

"The effect on entelechies of the Corridors of Darkness is well-documented. I don't know why you're so shocked by all this."

"She was in there for _two seconds_ before passing out. I brought her here in four minutes, and she's been out for three days."

"Some hearts are more vulnerable to darkness than others."

"Vexen, this is a little bit _extreme_. I wouldn't say this is at all typical."

"Well, Axel, it turns out that I don't care. If this specimen dies, we'll simply move on to her brother."

My _who?_ Since when did I have a brother? I almost asked this straight out, but I was still paralyzed. And also I realized that giving them information might be bad plan.

And, wait a minute - how is Vexen alive? At this point in the timeline, he should be dead. At Axel's hands, even.

Gosh, if only I had some voluntary muscle control right about now. Then I could get some answers. Or not, if the Organization was feeling reticent. Which seemed likely.

"Do you know how long it took me to get a hold of _her_?! And her brother is _better_ guarded. Do you want answers or not?"

"Certainly. But I'm in no hurry. Why are you?"

Silence, for a moment.

"Don't wish to answer? Suit yourself. But _quit pestering me_."

It was at about this point that my body slowly started to respond to my commands again. Which was both convenient and inconvenient, since Axel entered my room at this moment, presumably to keep an eye on the patient.

"Ah, you're awake."

I blinked in surprise. (And apparently I had control over my eyelids.)

"No point hiding it from me. I know the difference by now."

I sat up, slowly. "I... cannot _stand_ sleep paralysis."

"Ooh. I've had that once or twice. Not a fun time."

"Yeah... um, I'd like to jump to the point of all this. You abducted me. Why?"

"Saïx ordered me to."

"Ha ha. Why did you, the Organization collectively, abduct me?"

"It was either you or your brother, and you were open first."

Again with the non-answers. "And why did you want - "

"Yeah, look, I'm not actually here to answer your questions. I'm here to ensure you don't escape, or die, or anything."

Well, that's annoying.

"And hey, to be fair, I couldn't answer that question anyway. I never bothered asking myself."

"Ah. Well, maybe you can answer this: Which members are still around?"

"... All thirteen of us, as it happens."

"Oh, so Xion is gone?"

"No, she's still around."

"Then if you have thirteen members, who's missing?"

"Fourteen, then. Sheesh, forgive me for forgetting that Organization XIII added an extra member at some point."

XXXXXXXXXX

After a day of recovery ("A coma isn't sleep, kiddo", quoth Axel), I was brought to Saïx.

"So... do _you_ want to tell me why I'm here?"

"Today, I am sending you on a mission."

"... What, just like that? No interrogation, no oath of loyalty?"

"This mission _is_ your test of loyalty. If you fail it, Zexion will destroy you."

"I take it he's my escort, then?"

"Indeed. You will be doing recon at the Mysterious Tower."

 _Yen Sid's tower_?! I guess he wanted to make sure I was good and tempted to defect. It wouldn't be a very good test if I wasn't, I suppose...

"That is all. Do not betray us."

XXXXXXXXX

"So... what exactly are we trying to find out?"

"There's been an unusual amount of activity here since - lately. We want to know... why, I guess."

Well, if _Dream Drop Distance_ had started, the activity was surely Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam, and/or Lea's Keyblade training.

... Hey, wait a minute, if Lea exists, how does Axel exist at the same time?

"Well, I could try walking in the front door and asking. Pretty sure they'd think I'm friendly."

"Absolutely not. You're not authorized to leave my sight."

I sighed. It had been worth a try. "All right. The wizard who runs this tower surely has magical defenses up, and they're almost certainly tuned to your Organization in particular. So what was _your_ bright idea?"

"If we simply remain out of sight and observe who enters and exits the tower, we can learn a great deal from that alone."

"So... literally the only reason I'm here is to test my loyalty. You could have done that on your own."

"... Not the _only_ reason. I'm also being punished. As you said, I could be doing this on my own. However, by combining this stakeout with your loyalty test, I'm forced to watch you, in addition to the door."

"Yikes. And Saïx is authorized to do that?"

"I didn't say..." The 'are you joking me' expression on my face cut his statement short. "All right, yes, it _was_ Saïx, nobody else would do that."

"Larxene?"

"Vindictive enough, but she'd take her revenge more directly. ... When did you encounter her? I wasn't aware you had time."

"Bumped into her on the way," I lied smoothly.

"Not literally, I hope?"

"Do I look like I'm nursing electrical burns?"

"No, but you could easily be tougher than you look."

"Gee, thanks."

Zexion rolled his eyes.

XXXXXXXXXX

After an annoying amount of time, I spotted activity at the front door.

It was Kairi. I guess this confirmed that _Dream Drop Distance_ had happened, in its entirety. Which meant I had no foreknowledge to aid me... or, on the other hand, restrict me.

"An interesting development. Tempest, do you know why one of the Princesses of Heart is at this place?"

"I have a few guesses. You?"

"I would like to know what you think."

"Well, this is a wizard's tower. Clearly she's here to learn some form of magic. For self-defense, presumably."

"Perhaps. As you are well aware, these worlds are dangerous for - hold a moment."

Kairi had wandered away from the tower. Unbeknownst to her, we were now between her and the door. But that's not what had caught Zexion's attention.

A Corridor of Darkness had opened next to Kairi, and a hooded figure stepped out of it.

"No other missions to this world have been authorized today. Who is committing this flagrant breach of protocol?"

"I can think of two people just offhand who have that cloak and aren't members of your Organization." Though the figure was plainly not Mickey, it could well have been Riku.

The figure put down their hood and immediately proved me half right. It wasn't a member of the Organization. But... I didn't know who it _was_.

And apparently, neither did Kairi. She immediately summoned her Keyblade.

The figure spoke. I couldn't hear them, but they made a 'calm down' gesture with their hands. Kairi didn't seem completely convinced, as she lowered her Keyblade but didn't unsummon it.

The two of them spoke for a while, Kairi remaining wary the whole time. After some time, the figure held out their left hand

and summoned a Kingdom Key D.

 _Holy crap! A new Keyblade wielder!_ , I thought, while carefully concealing my surprise.

Well, trying to. Zexion smirked. "My, you didn't know?"

"... Yes, this development surprised me. Now shush, I'm trying to observe."

Kairi seemed satisfied by this, as she finally unsummoned her Keyblade. The two of them talked further, but this part of the conversation seemed to be frustrating to Kairi. After a bit of this, the figure shrugged, put up their hood, and turned around to open another Corridor of Darkness.

Kairi sighed and returned to the tower.

"Interesting. Very interesting. So tell me, Tempest, how does it feel knowing your brother had a Keyblade this whole time and never told you?"

So that was my alleged brother. "There's a lot of things he doesn't tell me," I bluffed. Technically, I wasn't even lying - there would, in fact, be a large number of things a total stranger hasn't told me. That may be why Zexion didn't catch me.

"Heh. Well, I think we've learned all we can today. Let's head back to the castle." He opened a Corridor of Darkness. "Ladies first."

I rolled my eyes and stepped through.

XXXXXXXXXX

Despite what I would have called an inconclusive result on my loyalty test, Saïx saw fit to grant me free reign of the castle, though I was still forbidden to go outside. Not that I particularly wanted to. Getting lost in Radiant Garden was bad enough.

He didn't send me on any more missions. Apparently, with my loyalty confirmed, he had no further reason to send me out. Whatever he needed me for would take place right here.

So I spent most of my time doing combat training on the various simulations Zexion had set up.

At least, that's what I wanted everyone to think. In reality, I wasn't planning on just sitting here until something happened - especially since the complete lack of information on why I was when here strongly suggested that Saïx didn't want me to know. So I was actually forming an escape plan.

The first thing I wanted to do was get Roxas and Xion in on it. And then Axel, since I expected they wouldn't want to leave without him. But curiously, any time I managed to 'coincidentally' encounter the two, they were accompanied by another member I didn't trust. And never just Axel. It seemed the Organization knew they needed to keep an eye on that group.

After a few days of this, I was getting antsy and desperate. And then Roxas approached me.

"I got a question for you, Tempest." He held out a tree branch that he had for some reason. "What do you make of this?"

I looked at it in confusion. "Roxas... that's a stick."

"He was right..." He looked around. Nobody else was here. "Okay. I spoke to your brother. He said he has answers for me, but in exchange I need to sneak you out to meet him."

"Uh, okay, but what's with the stick?"

"He said that's how I'd know you were really his sister and not some random person we captured by mistake - that if I showed you a stick you'd respond with the exact phrase, 'Roxas, that's a stick'. And that he knew you'd do that would prove he knew what I wanted to know."

"That's... very clever of him." So, my alleged brother was also a fan of the series. I couldn't decide whether that made perfect sense, or was even more ridiculously improbable.

"So we need to be in room B of subbasement 3, at 4 in the morning tonight."

"Oh, my sleep schedule is never going to recover, is it... But forget that, here's something actually important: I think we should bring Xion, too." I wasn't sure if I could get Axel on board, so I just kept quiet about him.

"Really? Your brother said you had to go alone..."

"Yeah, but that doesn't exclude you, right? Because if you don't go, you won't get your answers. And you trust Xion, right? And I bet she wants answers too..."

"Yeah... Okay. I'll ask her."

XXXXXXXXXX

As unpleasant as it was to stay up this late, it wasn't as bad as waking up early.

Still, I was at the appointed place, with only a few minutes left, and I was tempted to doze off until the alleged brother arrived. Except, of course, that I wanted to be awake when he showed, since I had no clue what he had in mind.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

There wasn't actually any kind of ticking clock in the room (which seemed to be a disused storeroom of some kind), but my brain _generously_ provided the missing noise.

Roxas and Xion were there as well, leaning on the wall next to the door. (They had both decided that the door needed to be watched, but couldn't decide who would watch it. So they both were.)

We were all wearing our cloaks. Roxas and Xion seemingly because they didn't have any other clothes, and me because I had a sneaking suspicion I'd be using a Corridor of Darkness before the night was out, and I'd prefer more than two seconds of consciousness.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Finally, at exactly the appointed time, a Corridor of Darkness opened.

"This is kinda hilariously insecure," I said, "if anyone with access to Corridors of Darkness can just waltz in whenever they feel like."

"Well, they do have intruder alarms. This one's just bugged to go off late. If there's exactly one person in the room when the intruder shows, the alarm takes an extra five minutes and a bit to go off."

Uh oh. "What if it's three instead of one?" I asked.

He turned around to see Roxas and Xion, both wide-eyed in panic over the same realization. "Fourteen seconds. Roxas, I _told_ you - never mind, we need to move!" He reopened the Corridor and yanked me in.

Inside the Realm of Darkness, I yanked my arm out of his grip just as Roxas and Xion entered and several klaxons sounded.

"They set their alarms on both sides, so getting out before they go off isn't a get out of jail free card. But if we hadn't, we'd have been trapped there, so this is definitely better. That said, those klaxons aren't just for show..."

Heartless. Swarms of them, apparently attracted by the noise and lights. Roxas, Xion, and my alleged brother all summoned their Keyblades, while I took up a boxing stance. For some reason, this earned an odd look from the alleged brother, but I didn't have time to question him about it, as the Heartless started to charge.

"Follow me," he shouted, bashing a Neoshadow away. "I know where we need to open the exit portal."

He led the way, knocking enemies aside as he traveled. Roxas and Xion followed, widening the path. I followed behind them, carefully not engaging any Heartless, as without a Keyblade a fight would greatly slow me down. (I did hit on the idea of baiting a Darkball and riding it towards our mystery destination, but it seemed too impractical to try. For _several_ reasons.)

I shivered. Though the cloak protected me from the darkness, I could still feel it. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation, now that I wasn't distracted from it.

"Here's our stop!" he said, and opened a Corridor.

"Thank g- sjhsgfhhg?!" I was cut off when he grabbed me by the arm and yanked me through, _again_. Which, in retrospect, I should have seen coming.

As the four of us exited the Corridor, I yanked my arm out of his grip again. "Will you quit that? I am fully capable of moving under my own power."

"Forgive me for being in a hurry, _dear sister_ , I was expecting more than fourteen seconds to work with."

"Oh, are you telling me there are alarms on this end, too?" I looked around - we seemed to be in a disused corner of Twilight Town. "Because this place doesn't look Organization-controlled to me."

With, apparently, nothing to say to that, he simply fumed for a moment. And then, quite suddenly, he calmed down. "Actually, you're right. I shouldn't have done that the second time, and I apologize." I raised an eyebrow. "I stand by the first time, though! I didn't know your reaction time and didn't want to risk leaving you behind."

"Fair enough, but the eyebrow was actually because I was surprised you apologized at all."

He shrugged. "You can't grow as a person if you refuse to acknowledge when you're wrong."

"That's certainly true."

"Well, this is an interesting sibling reunion and all," Roxas interrupted, "but I came here for answers."

"Indeed you did, and you'll get them. But before that, this little trip has given me a question I'd like answered..." He turned to me. "Why haven't you summoned your Keyblade?"

I blinked. "My...?" I held out my right hand. With a flash of light, a Kingdom Key appeared. "Wh...?"

If I was the sort of person to pass out from surprise, this would definitely have been enough of one to do it. But I'm not that sort of person, so instead I just stared at it for a while.

* * *

Fun way to write longer chapters without really trying: Write normally until you reach something like 90% of your normal chapter length, realize an interesting ending point is about to happen, and decide not to stop until you reach it.

Reviews are appreciated, as always.


	4. 4: Establishing Some Facts

So, after fiddling around with Google Docs for a while, I officially know how to publish new chapters from my phone. It's a horrible kludge, but it works for those times when I don't want to wait til I'm home from work. **Protip** : The FFN mobile app is basically worthless for this purpose, as somehow even my below-average-length chapters are far too long for it to handle. So that's fun.

Also, I made a small edit to chapter 1 after realizing that during revision I accidentally removed something I hadn't wanted to remove. Probably it'll be quite a few chapters before it makes a real difference, though. Assuming I even include that idea, which I'm still undecided on.

Also also I added a genre! I never really know what genre to classify my stuff as on this internet web site.

Anyway. Let's continue.

* * *

"What the heck..." I had a Keyblade. I _didn't know why_ I had a Keyblade. "I can't just have a Keyblade _ex nihilo_! There needs... needs to be... _why am I getting deja vu about this_?!"

"Holy crap, calm down, sister," my alleged brother said, looking way too amused. "Well, now I know why you weren't using it, at least."

"And _you_!" I turned on him, pointing an accusing finger. "How did you know about this before I did?"

"How did you _not_ know?" He shook his head. "The entire reason the Organization wanted you was for that Keyblade."

"Well, they weren't exactly forthcoming with their motives... Wait. The Keyblade? But they already had two! Even if," here I waggled my hand vaguely to indicate the events of _358/2 Days_ and Xion's disappearance without tipping off Roxas or Xion, "they'd still have the one."

"I'm sorry, even if _what_?!" Hm, so much for not tipping them off.

"I mean, to be fair," my alleged brother pressed on, seemingly ignoring Roxas's outburst, "the Organization now has access to _neither_ of them." He turned to face them. "I mean, you didn't think you'd be going back to the castle after aiding and abetting the escape of a vital captive, did you?"

"Aiding and abetting?" Xion finally spoke up. "Oh, no no no. This is _hot pursuit_. Roxas was trading an illicit meeting for vital information, and you spotted an opportunity to get out. We've been chasing you since."

Roxas looked at the three of us, clearly not engaged in any sort of chase. "Umm..."

"As far as Saïx or Xigbar knows..."

"Oh! Right. Hot pursuit. That's what we're doing right now."

For some reason, I got a sudden image of Xigbar shrugging and saying "okay I believe you" in a weird monotone.

"Speaking of vital information..." it finally occurred to me to ask, "... I have a sneaking suspicion that my brother... let's say, isn't currently going by his birth name." His surprised reaction confirmed that I had guessed right.

It had seemed the obvious explanation. I didn't at all recall having a brother, but I distinctly recalled having a sister... If the boy standing in front of me was transmasculine, the apparent contradiction was... _mostly_ resolved.

There was, admittedly, a bit of a time issue - but I knew that time between worlds wasn't synced. While I experienced twelve days, he could well have experienced a month, or a year, or really any length of time.

"It's getting a little awkward to always call you 'my brother', so what name _are_ you using?"

"Luke."

"... As in 'Skywalker'?"

He sighed in exasperation. " _No_ , actually, and I had just gotten used to everyone I meet _not_ pointing out the reference, so thanks for that."

"Hah, sorry, I really shouldn't be... Just, you know there's a non-zero chance of encountering the other Luke at some point, right?"

"I'll just tell him - if he even _asks_ , if this even _happens_ \- that it's a coincidence, like I told... well, just you so far. But I was expecting to hear that a lot, right up until the world got eaten."

"Umm, as fascinating an insight into your world as this is..." Roxas interrupted.

"Right, right. I promised you answers."

XXXXXXXXXX

And so, after an intense questioning session which will inevitably be flashed back to whenever convenient and be a great device for patching plot holes...

...er, I mean... something that doesn't blatantly break the fourth wall? Yes.

After that, it was decided that our cover story was as follows: Luke and I split up to lose our pursuers, but Roxas and Xion took the obvious measure of splitting up to follow us, only to lose us after a while due to inopportune ambushes from Heartless.

"Now that Tempest is actually aware of her Keyblade, she can use the Lanes Between, and you two can't. I don't think you're 'supposed' to know about those, but I suspect at least one of the higher-ups in the Organization does, and that should explain how we got away so swiftly."

"And... be careful, all right? The Organization is already suspicious of you two. They might not buy the cover story. Axel might pretend to, he's on your side, kind of... But the higher-ups, especially Xigbar and Saïx, you need to be careful around. I think you should plan to get out. Axel won't let you leave without him, I think, so make sure to get him on board as soon as possible."

After they left, Luke turned to me and asked, "Well, what now?"

"Hmmm." I considered this. "Well, first, I think you need to explain _how_ to use the Lanes Between."

"Ah. Well, it's surprisingly simple. First, put the coat back on. The Lanes Between are no Realm of Darkness, but they're still _pretty_ full of darkness. Then..." He summoned his Kingdom Key D, and with a flourish, pointed it at a seemingly random spot in the sky. A beam of light shot out, and a glowing portal orb appeared.

"... I see. But, ah, as impressive as that is, you might want to explain in a bit more detail - as you might recall, I've known about my Keyblade for roughly an hour, and I'm not exactly practiced in its more esoteric uses."

He snrk'd. "Fair enough. So here's how you do it..."

XXXXXXXXXX

"... there you go! Just like that."

After a few tries, I managed to get my Keyblade to generate the beam of light that unlocks passage to the Lanes Between.

"And the same basic principle is used to summon the Keyblade Glider, just a different motion."

"That's... a little weird."

"A little, but Keyblades are kinda," he waved his hand 'mystically', "like that."

"A _lot_ of things in this 'verse are," I waved my hand the same way, "like that."

"Heh. Very true."

Suddenly, an unfamiliar tone chimed from Luke's pocket. He pulled out his phone and glanced at it. "Shoot. Okay, I have a thing I have to handle... normally I'd offer to let you tag along, but there's some stuff you'd need to be briefed on first, and I'm not sure there's time to wait..."

I waved him off. "Go, handle the thing. I've got things I want to do myself. Just, keep in touch, all right?"

"Speaking of which - your phone needs an update to recognize the network we're using. Let me send you the data..."

XXXXXXXXXX

After installing the update and confirming that it did allow us to contact each other, Luke summoned his Keyblade Glider and headed off.

I, meanwhile, had a bit of a conundrum.

The thing I wanted to do was find Sora and figure out what the crap was going on. Only, I had no clue where he would be at this point. At the end of _Dream Drop Distance_ , he had returned to the dreaming version of Traverse Town to... hang out with his Spirits? That seemed incorrect, since he had made it sound, like, legitimately important. But I could only remember that one iconic image from the post-credits scene, and nothing about any other task.

But since I wasn't clear on what that hypothetical other task was, I had no clue how long it'd take him. And I also didn't know what he planned to do afterward. Which would be important if he was already done and 'afterward' was, in fact, now.

After some thought, I decided to head to the Mysterious Tower. That was his last known (to me) location in the waking world, and even if I couldn't find him, Yen Sid would surely know something useful.

XXXXXXXXXX

One nice thing about the Lanes Between was that, unlike the Realm of Darkness or... whatever Gummi Ships traveled through, it was completely devoid of enemies.

In fact, I had initially assumed that the Lanes Between _was_ what Gummi Ships traveled through - it was the lack of Gummi Heartless that clued me in on the difference.

What I'm saying is, the trip to the Mysterious Tower was uneventful. And I could expect future trips to be equally uneventful. Which was good.

As I descended to land in front of the tower, I considered my approach. I was, after all, a virtual stranger, and I couldn't reasonably barge in asking questions and expect them to trust me on my word alone.

My thoughts were rendered moot, however, when I landed and was immediately confronted by a flowery Keyblade in the face.

"Why are you back here, Luke? I told you, we don't - you're not Luke." Kairi lowered her Keyblade, but didn't dismiss it.

"I am, indeed, not Luke," I said. "I'm Tempest, Luke's sister. ... What on earth did he _say_ to you to get that reaction?"

"Nothing in particular," Kairi said, probably lying because I had given her no reason to trust me. "Actually, he was very insistent on not saying anything in particular." Or maybe not. "He didn't even mention having a sister. ... Why are _you_ here, anyway?"

"Well, it's a bit of a long story, but the short of it is..." I held out my right hand and summoned my Keyblade.

" _Another one_?!"

"Yeah... There's a lot going down, and I don't even know most of it. I figured a Keyblade Master would be a good starting point."

"Riku's busy."

"I meant Yen Sid."

"... Oh, that makes more sense."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Greetings. I have been waiting for you. As you seem to already know, I am Yen Sid."

"My name's Tempest, and - wait, you've been _waiting_ for me?"

"I have. Many unexpected developments have occurred lately. Unexpected, it seems, even to our enemies. Tell me, Tempest - what do you know about Organization XIII?"

"Well... they're a group of Nobodies, led by Xemnas, with the goal of gathering hearts from Keyblade-slain Heartless, to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts, which they plan to use to gain hearts and become whole people again. Except secretly, they don't need to do all that because anything with self-awareness can grow a heart over time, including Nobodies, and the real plan that almost none of them knew was that they'd be thirteen vessels for Xehanort. And then they all got killed, mostly but not exclusively by Sora. Due to some weirdness, this caused their originals to come back to life.

"And then, they all came _back_. The Nobodies. And that's the _really_ weird part, because up til now, everything has been possible within the cosmology of this multiverse. But a bunch of slain Nobodies, who had regenerated into their originals, all coming back without..." A possible hole on this logic occurred to me. "Nothing's happened to Lea, right?"

"Lea is alive and well, and his training is proceeding as normal."

"Right. So the _bodies_ of these Nobodies are all up, about, and occupied by their original hearts. So how'd they come back independently?"

"That is what I have been attempting to find out. My two primary clues are this. Firstly, when your world fell to darkness, it was, in The World That Never Was, _precisely_ one month after the Organization's reappearance.

"And secondly, I would like confirmation from you: while you were in the custody of the Organization, did you meet every single member?"

I blinked. Of course. I ticked them off on my fingers to confirm, but subconsciously I had already realized - I had never once encountered Xemnas or Naminé.

Now, I was pretty sure, from eavesdropping on the other members, that Naminé was, in fact, returned alongside everyone else, and I simply hadn't met her. They seemed to be keeping us apart on purpose, in fact, though I had trouble imagining why.

But I had no such evidence of Xemnas's existence. Indeed, the fact that Saïx and Xigbar seemed to have become the de facto leaders of the Organization was actually evidence that their inexplicable return had, equally inexplicably, excluded their Superior.

"No. I never met Xemnas. Somehow he's the only one that didn't come back, isn't he?"

"That was my observation. However, I still do not know why."

I thought about this for a moment. "How important is the 'why', though? Compared to what we do about it, that is."

"Indeed, our response is the most important thing. However, learning the cause of this event may help us decide on a plan of action, so it is not entirely irrelevant."

"Fair enough... I don't really have any leads on the cause, though. Do you?"

"Not at this time, unfortunately. We shall have to wait and observe, and in the meantime, prepare.

"That said... you might wish to return to Radiant Garden, briefly at least. Your friends there have surely been concerned for you."

"Oh. Yikes. I completely forgot about how I left there. Yeah, I should definitely tell them I'm okay. Uh, first, just to be safe - is there some way to scan me and make sure there's no trackers of any kind? It'd be a bit annoying if I went to all this effort to escape and they immediately recaptured me."

* * *

And that's chapter 4. In slightly under two weeks. A good pace, in my onion. Though I got stuck for a few days on, uh, Luke's name. Well, you're reading a fic called "A Decent Self-Insert, Probably", so I imagine you already know I'm not the best at naming things.

Also, wow, that's a lot of scene cuts. I think I might have overused that technique a bit in this chapter.


	5. 5: Shadowy Clash

Last update: November 6  
Today's date: December 8

Never let me utter the phrase "a good pace" about my writing ever again, because _of course_ after saying that I would immediately get The Cold From Hell, and my writing groove goes straight down the drain. Thanks, flesh vessel.

Admittedly, part of the delay is that I also got distracted writing plot threads that won't appear for a while yet. Can't say I'm done with that, either. Oops.

But at least I'm not ill anymore, so hopefully after this... no, perhaps I'd better say nothing. Don't want to tempt fate again.

* * *

"Tempest! You big _jerk_! I was... we were all so worried about you!"

Yuffie was, naturally, making a big show about my return.

"Uh, you do know I didn't get captured on purpose, right?"

"That doesn't matter! I trained you for a whole week, and the moment you get a day off you forget rule number one!"

"... Sensei is always right?"

"No! That's rule _zero_! Rule one is _constant vigilance_!"

"I am almost entirely sure you said that exactly zero times."

"Wh-? No way!" She looked around at the others. "Back me up, here!"

"Wouldn't know, I wasn't there," Leon said.

"You've changed your 'rule number one' three times that I've noticed, and I'm not actually paying attention," Cid added.

"... Sorry, Yuffie. I have to agree with Tempest on this one," Aerith said.

"Oh, so I guess you've all already forgotten rule zero, huh?"

I couldn't help it, I snrk'd. And then Leon snrk'd, and soon everyone was bursting into giggles.

"Well, I'm glad everyone's having a good time without me," said a familiar yet unfamiliar voice from the doorway.

"Sora!"

Everyone else rushed over to greet the Keyblade Bearer, while I just sort of hung out in the corner.

"It's great to see all you guys again." Sora said, as he stepped away from the group and towards me. "And... I don't think you and I have met, but I have a sneaking suspicion I've heard of you."

I nodded. "I'm Tempest."

Sora nodded. "The others said a lot about you. Mostly about how worried they were, actually..."

I sighed. "I didn't get abducted on purpose!"

"Heh. Guess you've heard that a lot already."

"Pretty much the only thing I've heard since getting back, yeah..." Suddenly, my phone chimed. "Hm?"

 _There's a situation. Er, several, really, but one of them I need your help with. You're at RG, right? Meet me in the plaza._

"Hmmm. Well, Sora, I imagine you're busy thwarting Xehanort, but there's apparently a situation my brother needs help with." I moved toward the exit.

"Actually, it's the weirdest thing. Right after the old Organization reappeared, Xehanort dropped off the radar entirely. We're pretty sure he's vanished on purpose, but we don't know why..." Apparently not busy after all, Sora walked with me.

"... Well, this just keeps getting weirder. You figure he's up to something?"

"Is he ever not?"

"Heh. Fair point. So if Xehanort has paused his original plan, what are you guys up to?"

"Shoring up our defenses, mainly. The Princesses of Heart have been moved to secret safe places. We wanted to teach them self defense, but we're stretched pretty thin, so it's been impossible to get anyone to _do_ the teaching.

"Meanwhile, Maleficent has taken Xehanort's little vacation as an opportunity to get back into world domination. But the inexplicable return of the Organization is apparently a reason for her to be cautious about it, cause she's only summoning huge Heartless and tossing them at the most vulnerable-looking worlds.

"So the four of us - me, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, are hopping between worlds and hoping to catch any nasties before they cause trouble. And sometimes we bring along Kairi or Lea, though they're usually busy with training. But today it's me and Kairi checking out this world."

"No Riku?"

"He's got another job to do. Something about the Realm of Darkness..."

At about this point, we had arrived at the plaza. "Hmmm. Looks like Luke isn't here yet. I guess we're just waiting for him?"

"Well, I was going to meet up with Kairi here. We spilt up to cover more ground, and it's about that time..." Suddenly, a chime from Sora's pocket. He pulled out an unfamiliar device - his equivalent to a cell phone, or a two-way radio? - and held it to his ear. "Something up? ... I can get there in a minute. Stay out of its sight til then as long as it's just lumbering."

He put the device away. "It's in the gardens," he said, rushing off. As I followed him, I pulled out my phone to text Luke.

 _Huge Heartless in the gardens. Related? Either way, I'll be there, not the plaza._

With that, I put my phone away and picked up the pace - Sora had gotten quite a ways ahead of me while my attention was divided. But before long, we reached the gardens and saw it.

A giant Heartless, similar to the Guard Armor, but instead of arms, it had a huge blade and a massive shield. Its legs appeared to fold out into another form, but I couldn't tell what. And all four limbs (plus the head), while free-floating, were visibly tethered to the body by red beams of some kind of energy.

"Why is there always a giant animated armor?" Sora lamented.

The armor's head immediately rotated to face Sora, and the blade brandished... uh, itself.

"Ooh, touchy." Sora summoned his Keyblade. "Kairi, I'm here! Let's take this thing down!"

Immediately, a barrage of light missiles blasted from a cluster of overgrown vegetation just outside the reclaimed area of the garden, and Kairi leaped out of her hiding place, Keyblade in hand.

The head turned again, and the shield swiped through the air in an attempt to block the attack, but only caught a few bullets. The rest mostly struck the body, causing the Heartless to stagger backwards, and a handful struck the head, setting it spinning wildly.

While the foe was disoriented, Sora leaped at the body and started swinging rapidly, and I summoned my Keyblade and began channeling an attack spell.

"Stone!" A chunk of rock tore itself out of the ground and flung itself at the body, knocking it about.

Suddenly Sora jumped back. "Watch out!" he shouted, as the armor's parts retracted to the body, and it began spinning wildly in place. After a moment it stopped and the limbs popped back out.

"Is this working?!" I shouted. Without Scan, I couldn't tell if our attacks were having any effect.

"It's not taking damage..." Sora said, as Kairi blasted the back side of the shield, sending it flying and pulling the body behind it.

"It's... pulling?" Kairi said.

"That's it!" I exclaimed. "Try breaking the tethers!" They both nodded.

As Kairi charged up another blast, Sora circled behind the armor and I started channeling another spell. Kairi unleashed her attack, getting the shield's behind again, and Sora smacked the body with the flat of his Keyblade.

Sure enough, the opposing forces overcame the tether's attraction and it snapped, releasing little sparks. Without its connection to the body, the shield plummeted to the ground, only able to twitch ineffectually.

Seeing that it worked, I released my next spell. "Break!" Rivulets of stone formed on the body - either it was partially resistant, or my unfamiliarity with the spell meant I hadn't cast it properly. But a partial effect would do, and the stone coating was slowing it down as it tried to retrieve its lost body part.

"Now, break the shield while it's down!" Sora started wailing on the shield with his strongest attacks, while Kairi blasted it with more magic.

I was about to join them when my phone went off, and the extremely unexpected distraction caused me to trip over what could only have been a shadow. Not even a Shadow Heartless, just a regular shadow.

"Who the hell is _calling me_ in the _middle of a boss fight_?!" I picked myself up and jabbed the 'decline call' button, not even checking who it was.

When I looked up, Sora and Kairi had destroyed the shield, and the armor was retracting its limbs again. And then it... fell down.

"Wh...?"

"Don't drop your guard!" Sora said.

He was right, of course. One of its legs apparently had a rocket concealed in it, and it blasted at full thrust, sending the armor - and its outstretched sword - spinning through the gardens.

"Holy frick-" I got half a curse out before the spinning armor flew in my direction, and I quickly brought up my Keyblade to deflect it.

After a few seconds of this ridiculousness, it slowed to a halt and stood up. Its limbs popped back out, still connected by a green tether of energy.

This time, though, something was different. The sword flew at me, swinging... itself, wildly. The rocket leg hopped toward Kairi and started spewing flames, and the other leg fired some kind of energy pellets at Sora.

"The tethers are definitely looser now!" Kairi said.

"We can't snap them like this - do we just endure it?" I asked.

Sora rolled past the energy pellets and took an opportunistic swing at the body. "We'll think of something."

I cast Break on the body again, slowing it. Kairi blinked. "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

Kairi blasted the body again. "The tethers! They're changing color!"

I looked, and sure enough, the tethers' green had gained a barely-detectable tinge of yellow.

"Wait, weren't they red before? When did they turn green?" Sora said.

"The shield tether was definitely red when we snapped it." I said.

"So that means -"

"Focus on the body!"

Slash, swipe, blast, stone... After a few moments of this, Sora spoke up. "Its health isn't going down."

"No, but the tethers are changing." At this point, they were yellow with just enough red to not quite qualify as orange, and getting visibly redder with every hit.

Once the tethers turned fully red, the limbs suddenly snapped back to the body. "It's gonna spin again!" Sora shouted.

This time, in addition to the spinning blade, the other leg used its (machine gun?) ... previously mentioned projectile weapon of _some kind_ , to spray energy bullets everywhere.

Kairi immediately put up a Reflect shield. Sora got behind it and started reinforcing it with his magic. I did the same.

"It's gonna hit soon," Sora said. "On three?" We nodded. Carefully tracking the armor's movement, he counted. "One... two... three!"

On his count, all three of us forced as much magic as possible into the shield. An instant later, the armor hit it, and the shield blasted it across the gardens.

Somehow, it skidded to a halt in midair. Then it righted itself, and its limbs popped out, the tethers still bright red.

"Snap?"

"Snap."

... Um, I'm gonna gloss over a fair chunk of the battle here. We just did the same thing four more times. Nothing new happened til that was done. I don't want to write it all out longhand, and as interesting as it might hypothetically be to _watch_ , I imagine you don't want to _read_ it.

Once it was out of appendages, the body dropped to the ground, motionless.

"... Don't they normally explode when defeated?"

"Yes. Yes they do."

We stared at it for a few moments. It still didn't move.

"Scan _is_ showing its health at zero..."

A few moments more.

"All right, this is getting silly." Kairi pointed her Keyblade at the motionless enemy and an orb of light formed on the tip. "There's a simple way to make _sure_ it's really defeated."

Sora and I glanced at each other and shrugged. If it wasn't moving, Kairi could charge up as much power as she liked. So we stood back and let her.

After an absolutely preposterous amount of charge time (during which the armor did in fact remain motionless), Kairi unleashed a seemingly endless barrage of light beams, in seemingly every variety. When the dust cleared, the armor was _definitely_ gone.

"Well, that's that. I'd better check who called me..." I pulled out my phone. Several unread texts and a lengthy voicemail from... Luke. Uh oh.

Skimming the texts and listening to the voicemail revealed that they all contained the same basic message, with varying degrees of intensity:

 _Don't let Kairi land the final blow._

"Uh, hey, does anyone else feel that?" Sora asked.

"...Feel what?" I certainly felt _something_ , but I was hoping I was imagining it.

"A sort of rumbling, but like... perpendicular to reality, if that makes sense."

That was exactly what I was feeling. "Shit."

Kairi blanched. "I feel it too. What do we do, run?"

"Possibly _evacuate_? I don't know how big this is going to be!"

"Tempest! Sora! Kairi!" Luke shouted suddenly from the garden entrance. "Minimum safe distance is _here_ , so move it!"

Sora used Flowmotion to slide up a rail, while Kairi used something that looked like Collision Magnet to swing herself over. I, lacking fancy movement techniques, just ran full tilt.

The four of us got just past the exit when the ground shook. We braced ourselves and waited for it to stop.

Luke took a deep breath. "I _told him_ , we needed to explain _everything_ as soon as possible..." He seemed to be talking to himself. "It's not the worst case scenario. We can still salvage this. But no more deep secret bullshit." Another breath, and he looked up. "All right. You all _**need**_ to be briefed on why that just happened. I'm not letting him do his little controlling secretive just-in-case act any longer." He summoned his Keyblade Glider. "Come on."

Bewildered, Sora and Kairi looked to each other, and then to me. "Um..."

"Do we have a _reason_ to just go with what this guy is saying?" Sora asked.

"Well..." I said, "that Heartless came from Maleficent, right? I wonder if she _knew_ that would happen."

Kairi nodded. "It would definitely be part of our mission to find out, then."

Sora thought about this for a moment. "Works for me."

* * *

One upside to getting distracted writing multiple things at once is that I can tell you in advance that there will be a small update next Friday, and _it'll actually be true_.

Also I added some notes to chapter 1, because I'm persnickety about having my facts documented. If this chapter was already published when you first read that chapter, you've already seen them. If not, go and check. Or don't, if you don't care.


	6. Jiminy's Journal Interlude 1

**Tempest**

A quiet young woman (er, _usually_ quiet!) from a world that recently fell to darkness. She's another Keyblade Bearer. The resurrected Organization XIII has taken an interest in her, at least partly for her Keyblade.

* * *

 **Luke**

Tempest's brother, a brash young man who also wields a Keyblade. He's gotten involved in something secretive, but getting tired of keeping quiet about it. The resurrected Organization XIII is interested in him for the same reasons as Tempest, but apparently he's harder to get to.

* * *

 **Resurrected Organization XIII**

A group of Nobodies trying to create an artificial Kingdom Hearts, in hopes that it'll restore their lost hearts. They were all destroyed some time ago, but somehow all came back recently - with the exception of Xemnas. What in the world is going on here...?

* * *

 **Assault Armor**

Inspired by the likes of Guard Armor and Trinity Armor, Maleficent created this Heartless to attack Radiant Garden. Don't let the shining shield fool you - it's no paladin, and it plays dirty.

The left leg contains a rocket booster that doubles as a flamethrower, and the right contains a rapid-fire energy blaster. Unlike its inspirations, its parts can't operate independently, and must be connected to the body at all times by magical tethers.

Tempest, Sora, and Kairi made quick work of it, though something strange happened when it was defeated.

* * *

 **Nox's Report 2**

Before I explain our mistake, I must first explain our original intentions - which, in turn, means I must explain the nature of the subject we studied.

If you are not familiar with the elements of light and darkness, and the powers contained therein, take a moment to read up on that before continuing. Today I would recommend _Flux and Balance: Generating Power from Clashing Elements_ , by Lucius Nagil et al, but I hope that these reports are not needed for a very long time, in which case superior resources will surely have been created.

A well known legend is that of the χ-blade: the original Keyblade, broken eons since into seven pieces of light and thirteen pieces of darkness, and if seven lights clash with thirteen darknesses, the χ-blade will be reforged. And possibly the worlds will be destroyed. The legends are unclear on this point.

Less known is that if fewer lights and darknesses clash, lesser but still scientifically valuable effects occur.

For the past fifteen years, this team has been clashing single lights with single darknesses under various conditions, and the results have been both fascinating and deeply troublesome.

In most cases, a clash of this kind leaves a deposit of flux which can be harvested for its usual uses. As most sapient beings can harvest and use small amounts of flux subconsciously (Galdus et al, 798), it is believed that this phenomenon is responsible for the proliferation of combat arenas.

However, some areas in the fabric of reality have unusual properties, and will produce extreme results. As far as we have been able to determine, these areas only react to clashes between light and dark, and not to any other stimulus. Accordingly, they have become known as "Points of Shadow".

* * *

A/N: I said this interlude would be up on Friday. Today is Saturday. The reason? ... Well, uh, I'm scatterbrained and forgot to push the "publish" button all day yesterday. Oops! Anyway, Chapter 6 is in progress and should be up before the end of days.

Edit: Also, _seriously_ FFN, I can't name it "Chapter 5.5"? Great. Love it. Good... anti-spam or whatever. Definitely solves more problems than it causes and not the other way around.


	7. 6: Technology!

ATUHOR'S NOSE: I'm never gonna talk about my writing pace again. It's just gonna curse me. The cuuuuuurse. Oooo.

* * *

"... So, wait, how are we supposed to follow your brother, Tempest?" Sora asked.

"Wait, you still don't know how to use the Lanes Between? Oh dear." I pondered this a moment. "I guess... I should text him."

 _Hey fun fact: Turns out Sora and Kairi can't use the Lanes Between yet._

...

...

"Um. I was expecting a faster response. Well. While we wait, we should probably check out the damage."

We returned to the gardens, and... it was bad. Bad enough the physical destruction - the entire area was basically destroyed - but worse was definitely the rents in space-time itself.

Most of it was localized where the Assault Armor had fallen, but there were longer tears reaching out like arms. I jump to that simile because, weirdly, some of them were wrapped around the remaining large chunks of land, seemingly holding them in place.

One of them was reaching out to the entrance. I approached it curiously. What's on the other side? _Is_ there an "other side", or does it just annihilate anything it touches?

"Tempest?" Sora spoke up, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You sure you want to touch that?"

I looked down, confused. My right hand was reaching out, somehow without my knowledge. I shook it and shoved it in my pocket. "Definitely _not_. This looks..."

"Hey, what's over there?" Kairi said suddenly.

Across the ruins, near the other exit, a swirling vortex of black and white spirals had opened. Little beams of red and green laser light shot out in various directions, apparently scanning the area.

After scanning a larger chunk of land that happened to be near one of the void tears, the portal closed and reopened over there, and... a robot rolled out.

The robot rolled over to the tear and started poking at it with several mechanical arms.

"Is it... gathering something?" Sora said.

"Gathering _what_?" I responded. "It's a _void_." And yet, that was unmistakably what the robot was doing.

After a few minutes of furiously gathering... essence of nothing? ... the robot paused. A storage tank on its back that I hadn't noticed retracted into its body, and a new tank replaced it.

"Do we just... let it be?" Sora asked.

"I kinda want to follow it back to its home," Kairi said.

I pondered this. "I can think of a number of ways that can go bad... Would we even fit through its portal?"

"Good point," Sora said. "Hmm... Oh! Maybe Tron can help us!"

"Ooh, that might work." I quickly began formulating a plan.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Okay, it's a bit more beat up than I was intending," I admitted, "but I'm _pretty_ sure it's all structural damage."

"I just hope it can still interface with the Radiant Garden computers," Kairi said.

"Hey, how were we planning to connect this thing, anyway? I haven't seen a USB port or cable since my world got eaten; I'm guessing there's no standardization between worlds that shouldn't be in contact to begin with."

"I was thinking we'd just have the computer scan and upload the entire robot. It worked on me, Donald, and Goofy, so I figure..."

"I mean, maybe. But don't we want the _data_ stored on the robot, specifically? Uploading the whole thing might be dangerous."

Sora paused. "Hmmm... Well, I can't think of a _better_ idea."

"Neither can I," I admitted. "I mean, neither of _you_ saw any kind of access port on the thing, right? Maybe it's supposed to work wirelessly. ... Oh, that's gonna be a _pain_ to handle."

"Not with Tron's help!" Sora declared. And that was the end of that discussion.

After a quick walk to Cid's computer lab, the robot was scanned and uploaded. Another quick scan and we were inside Space Paranoids.

"Sora!" Tron appeared and hugged Sora spontaneously. "It's good to see you again! And to finally meet your friends!"

 _Wait, does Tron know about hugs? ... What am I saying, obviously he does, he's hugging Sora right now._

"And you must be Kairi," Tron said, turning to Kairi. (He was clearly guessing based on the fact that Kairi was obviously much closer to Sora's age than I was. I mean, he was _right_ , but still.)

"Yep!" Kairi said, nodding. "It's nice to meet you, Tron."

Tron turned to me. "And... I don't believe Sora has mentioned you."

"Yeah, I'm new, so he wouldn't have had time. My name's Tempest."

"Good to meet you, Tempest." Tron paused. "Tempest... Ah, yes! I believe Cid has spoken of you."

"Cid talks to you? ... About me?" I wasn't sure which part of that surprised me more.

"Yes, I believe he was considering taking you on as an apprentice of sorts, but then you were abducted by the Organization."

"Oh, I am _never_ going to stop hearing about that..." I muttered.

"Tempest, you escaped _today_ ," Sora reminded me.

"Yesterday, actually. Luke took me to Twilight Town first, then I stopped by Yen Sid's tower, and then I was frickin exhausted so I took a nap that accidentally turned into a full night's sleep..."

"It's true," Kairi said. "She was at the tower yesterday."

"Ooh, that's why you didn't ask me to introduce her. And why you fought so well together."

"I mean, we didn't train together or anything. I just slept. Kairi might have trained while I was there, but that shouldn't do anything..."

"With Keyblade wielders, that's actually surprisingly effective. I think there might be some sort of psychic connection thingy going on."

"And neither of us noticed?"

Sora shrugged. "It sounds weird, but there's definitely a difference. I once spent an hour and a half Magnet-ing those little flying swarmy Heartless on top of Pride Rock, and Donald, Goofy, and Simba all got way better at fighting by my side, even though none of them were contributing and Goofy wasn't even there."

I blinked. I had assumed that level grinding was a video game abstraction of proper training, but apparently not. Also, apparently canon.

Tron looked back and forth between us. "Every time I think I understand Users, something odd like this happens."

"Hey, don't feel too bad," I reassured Tron. "I _am_ a User, and I'll never understand us either."

This sparked a bit a collective giggle fit, after which Tron apparently decided it was time to get down to business. (Defeating the Huns was on a different world's agenda, though. Ba dum tish.)

"So, you wanted us to analyze that damaged robot you uploaded, correct? Thankfully, the physical damage didn't affect its hard drive -" ("HA! Told you!") "- though its using an unfamiliar format, and its processors are quite mangled, which is making it difficult to decompile the data -" ("Oh. Oops.") "- on top of which, it was evidently programmed to wipe its data if it met unexpected circumstances. But you disabled it before it could finish the process, so we should be able to recover the data with time."

I frowned. "So, for the moment, we have nothing?"

"We kinda captured the robot on a whim," Kairi pointed out.

"But my curiosity is completely unsatisfied!"

"Well, not necessarily," Tron spoke up. "While we haven't yet analysed the data stored on the robot, we did have information on the substance in its storage tanks."

"Oh, right, those things." I had already forgotten about those, actually.

"It's a thick fluid, invisible to organic eyes, with a high concentration of magical energy." Tron waved one hand and a projection of the two storage tanks appeared, with the iridescent liquid now clearly visible.

"This matches descriptions in some very old archived files - a substance called 'flux'. Mostly scientific reports, but there are other contemporary accounts, newspapers and the like. Apparently, they used to make ethers out of this stuff back in the day, before a more effective plant-derived recipe was created.

"Its use was abandoned some time back due to some catastrophic magical experiments that made it very unpopular. Apparently, the most common method of generating it could 'rend the worlds to their very core', or at least that's what people were saying."

"Hmm." I thought about this. "So, magical petroleum. I guess that's just inherently useful, if you can get it. But how did the robot know to come to this place, at this time?"

Sora shrugged. "I imagine that'll be answered when Tron analyzes all the robot's data. In the meantime, shouldn't your brother have messaged you back by now?"

I glanced at my phone. _No Signal._

"Um. It seems I can't receive messages in here." _How did that not occur to me?_

Sora and Kairi facepalmed. (Tron, not familiar with the gesture, looked at them in bewilderment.) " _ **Out**_ ," Kairi said, pointing back to the entrance.

A quick jump through the scanner and I was back in meatspace, where my phone immediately buzzed with approximately 11 messages. "Well, shit."

"Probably should have occurred to me to _mention_ that you couldn't connect inside Space Paranoids," Luke said. "But it hadn't occurred to me that you'd find a reason to go in there. This confirms some things, though..."

"Ah yes. Nice and cryptic."

Luke shrugged. "My reticence is magically enforced. I'll pester the one responsible til he gives me some clearance, but that can't happen until we actually, y'know, _go there_. Let's fast-track that a bit. Cid, can you put me on the line with Tron?"

"Yeah, hold yer horses." Cid tapped some keys, then pulled a microphone out of a drawer and tossed it to Luke. "He'll be on the line in... now."

"Tron? This is Luke, Tempest's brother and an ally of Sora. Sorry I couldn't jump in to meet you in person, but we're kind of in a hurry. Can you send a copy of the robot's raw data to the I/O Tower, and send out Sora and Kairi?"

"Acknowledged, Luke. The data is ready to be downloaded, and Sora and Kairi are on their way."

While the computer reassembled them, Luke handed Cid something that looked like a modified USB drive, and Cid plugged it in and tapped more buttons. (I had been reasonably computer-savvy back home, but every part of every system here was completely unfamiliar. Was this how the stereotypical "computer-illiterate grandmother" felt all the time?)

"You two need to communicate better," Sora said.

"Well, obviously," I said.

"Since you two _somehow_ still haven't been taught about the Lanes Between, I guess we're taking Sora's Gummi Ship... That can fit four, right?"

"Yeah, I upgraded the seating ages ago. And you'll have to drive, right?"

"I think having me give you directions while you drive would end up incredibly annoying, so yes."

So with that we all headed to the hangar and had a nice, mostly-uneventful flight. There were Gummi Heartless, but Sora's ship outgunned them handily. And then we arrived.

"Luke, I can't help but observe that we seem to be looking at less a world and more... a collection of broken fragmenty bits."

"Yeah. I know why we set up here initially, but he refuses to move somewhere more coherent, and I'm not sure why. Drama, maybe."

Unable to land, we ended up beaming down to coordinates Luke gave us, into a maze of twisty little passages, all only slightly different. Luke led us down a path he had presumably memorized, and...

" _DiZ?_ " I exclaimed in shock.

"Indeed."

"I... was almost entirely sure that you had died in that explosion."

"I'll admit, that was my intent... Let us say that Ansem the Wise got his wish, and DiZ learned that he has more work to do.

"To begin with... When I said that the explosion of the Kingdom Hearts Encoder could cause anything to happen, I must admit that I had _severely_ underestimated just what constitutes 'anything'."

I blinked. "Back up, just seven seconds. Are you saying _that's_ how the Organization is back?"

"Indeed. But they are a lesser issue." _Oh, hell._ "Certainly Xehanort will wish to exploit them. He'll likely succeed at that, But Sora destroyed them once, and he can certainly do it again. No, I'm concerned about something else.

"Tell me, Tempest." DiZ gestured at the scattered ruins around us. "What do you see?"

Most of what I saw was destroyed beyond recognition. And/or was something I wouldn't have recognized to begin with, I suppose. But I could see some twisted pieces of metal that made just enough sense that I could imagine _untwisting_ them, into... "Some kind of science lab?"

"Indeed. A certain material was studied here, one whose name has not been spoken since bef-"

"Flux," I interrupted. "It's flux, isn't it? Tron told us."

"... indeed. I am surprised to learn that my old systems had access to this information, as it predates even them."

"Well, did you have any 'digitally archive all these old documents' projects? Perhaps ones that you let someone else oversee? Because that would answer that."

"I did, in fact. Perhaps it was a mistake not to return to Radiant Garden..."

"Well, never mind that for the moment. Is this about the 'rend the worlds to their very core' bit?"

"Yes. I shall show you to the archives, for you will need the documents stored there. And I will explain the phenomenon they referred to as 'Points of Shadow'."

* * *

... I can't think of anything to say in this end note, other than the obligatory reminder that reviews are good.

I'm excited for TWEWY Final Remix. There, that's a thing. Is it a _relevant_ thing? The world may never know.


	8. 7: Part of the Team, Maybe

Either there really was a curse and shutting up about my writing pace broke it (or didn't activate it, at least), or the universe and/or my brain is deliberately screwing with me.

Or, I mean. It could simply be that having a Bluetooth keyboard for my phone has been more helpful than I ever expected.

Probably the curse, though.

And yes, I've changed the description. I expected this story to turn out more jokesy than it did, and it didn't fit anymore. I intended to update the title, too, but I couldn't think of an actually better one yet.

* * *

After an in-depth explanation of Points of Shadow, which Jiminy dutifully wrote in his journal, DiZ gave us several radar-type devices to find them.

"There are seven known Points, including the one in Radiant Garden. Their precise locations were never documented, for security reasons, but their statuses were clearly updated until this world's very end, and there is no indication that anything has happened like the incident at Radiant Garden.

"I have yet to determine a good way to secure Points, so you will simply have to mark them, and ensure that no great clash between Light and Darkness takes place there. Kairi, of course, needs to be especially careful, but depending on your exact proximity to the Point and the strength of the opposing Darkness, this may also mean Sora, King Mickey, even Riku. Luke, Tempest, I am still uncertain as to the strength of your Lights, so to you two I would simply recommend caution."

As we boarded Sora's Gummi Ship, Luke spoke up. "You three should touch base with Yen Sid. Xehanort is still out there, and forgetting about him to fixate on Points of Shadow would be... well, bad."

"Us three?" I asked. "Do you have other plans?"

"Well..." Luke pointed his Keyblade upward and opened the door to the Lanes Between. "I'm gonna forget about Xehanort and fixate on the Points of Shadow for a while. Specifically, I'm going to fly around and find all six worlds they're in, and send you the coordinates."

The three of us all simultaneously raised a suspicious eyebrow, which Luke seemed to find inordinately amusing. "Are you avoiding Yen Sid, Luke?" I asked pointedly.

"... More like DiZ is," he admitted. "They used to be close allies, remember, back when he was just Ansem the Wise. And I'm DiZ's main contact with the outside world right now. He's advised me not to approach Yen Sid unless I'm absolutely sure I can keep his name out of it."

This seemed like one of those social drama scenarios that I had never understood. "I see," I lied.

"Well, we won't tell him," Sora assured Luke. "He's probably not gonna ask anyway. Like most people, he assumed that Ansem was killed in the explosion."

Luke nodded. "I'll message Tempest when I find the first world. Then as soon as there's time, you can land there and pinpoint it."

And with that, he summoned his Keyblade Glider and left. And the three of us boarded the Gummi Ship and headed off to Yen Sid's Tower.

XXXXXXXXXX

"I wonder if Xehanort found out about the incident at Radiant Garden..." Sora mused during a quiet stretch of the flight.

"Knowing Xehanort?" I responded. "Definitely. A better question is, what does he plan to do about it?"

"Whatever gives him the greatest advantage."

"Well, obviously. But what do you think that _is_?"

We all paused to think about that.

"Do you think he knows where the robot came from?" Kairi asked.

"Maybe. I mean, that information has to _exist_ , and Xehanort is certainly a master of knowing things. But... it's definitely going to be someplace obscure."

"Speaking of obscure places," Sora said, "how much of the Unknown Remnant did Luke and DiZ search, anyway?"

"Not enough. They had do-not-cross tapes up over some of the paths, and I don't know whether that's because they don't know what's behind them, or they _do_ know and it's just that bad. Or even if it's a leftover from the original inhabitants. I should have asked." Kairi frowned at me. "Right, right, obvious solution. I'll message him now."

XXXXXXXXXX

After confirming that Xehanort was still lurking, at least for now, we decided to take the rest of the day and rest. Tomorrow, Kairi would return to training, Sora would patrol the worlds for Maleficent's schemes, and I would probably have a Point of Shadow to look into.

As I was studying a book of magic in the library, Lea suddenly came by and plopped down on the other side of the table.

"So, I guess you're the newest member of our little team."

I thought about that for a moment. "Maybe? I'd say I'm still semi-independent. Doing my own thing, but my thing happens to be the same as your thing right now. I guess I'll want to come back here for proper Keyblade training, too. Literally every master still alive is connected to Yen Sid, right? ... Except Xehanort, but, uh... _**no**_."

Lea grinned amusedly at my rambling answer. "The King, Riku, Yen Sid himself... yeah, sounds about right. Yen Sid has been outta practice so long that he probably won't want to take a third apprentice. His Highness, I think, is too busy doing stuff to sit down and train ya. Riku _definitely_ is, though when he gets back... Ah, but _that's_ need-to-know info."

"And you _do_ need to know the details of his mission?"

"Well, I'm the one who goes after - ahh, tricksy." He wagged a finger at me. "Need-to-know means need-to-know. I'm not here to talk about missions, I'm here to get to know my newest teammate. Or quasi-teammate, as the case may be. The name's Lea. Got it memorized?"

I nodded. "Mm-hmm. And I'm Tempest. Nice to meet you, Lea."

"Same to you, Tempest. I gotta admit, it's refreshing talking to someone who isn't trying to call me Axel all the time."

"Heh. I know firsthand how annoying _that_ can be."

"See, we've already got something in common! So, whatcha reading?"

"Right now I'm trying to learn how to cast Magnet. It's... trickier than I realized."

"Yeah, that's why I pretty much just stick with Fire."

"That's one way of handling it... I should probably get up and head somewhere it's safe to try casting the spell, but... this chair is comfy and I'm tired. It's been a long day."

"Take your rest when you can get it, Tempest. The life of a Keyblade wielder never slows down. Can't imagine how hectic it is being a Master on top of it."

"Yeah. Ever since I got this thing, everything has just kept happening so much all the time." I leaned back and flipped through the Magnet book some more. Lea reached over to a nearby shelf and pulled off a book at random.

We spent a few minutes reading in silence for a while before Lea spoke up again. "Hey, you feel that?"

I reached out and immediately frowned. "Last time I felt something perpendicular to reality like this, the result was an explosion that took out a good city block."

"What? Okay, but _this_ is what it feels like when someone's opening a portal from the Realm of Darkness nearby." Lea grinned. "I think Riku's back."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Give Riku some space, Sora. His journey has been long and arduous. As yours was, remember?"

At that last, Sora relented. "Yeah." And I thought I heard him mutter something about "I didn't even _finish_ " after that.

"I'm still in decent enough shape," Riku admitted. "Just need a good night's sleep, really. I'm more worried about her."

I should mention at this point that we were currently in an infirmary. Yeah, I didn't know Yen Sid's tower had one of those either, but I guess when you're a Keyblade Master and a master of wizardry at the same time, you end up getting a lot of injured apprentices.

Riku was sitting up in his bed, not visibly troubled. Sora and Kairi (but mostly Sora) were clamoring around him - or had been, until Yen Sid told them to knock it off.

And in another bed further back, either out cold or sound asleep, was Aqua.

I'd had a sneaking suspicion since Sora had mentioned Riku's mission, but Lea's comments had confirmed it.

I suppose it was the obvious guess, to someone with out-of-universe knowledge like I had. Though Xehanort had probably figured it out as well. Figuring things out is like his superpower, or something.

What I was still confused about was the bit where Lea had implied that I could get proper training after this mission. Did he mean Riku, Master for all of three months? Or Aqua, who had been lost in the Realm of Darkness for over a decade, and had believed herself unworthy of Mastery even before then?

Well. That was a discussion to be had at a later date regardless. Right now, we have a Xehanort to defeat and a bunch of Points of Shadow to secure.

As if in response to this thought, my phone chimed with a text from Luke.

 _Found one. The world is called "The Fifth Stolen City". Hope that rings bells for you, cause it doesn't for me._ And a set of coordinates I didn't know how to read, but figured Sora or someone could comprehend.

And yes, of course the name rang a bell. But I found it odd that we'd be heading to Fallen London, of all places. That's not even a Disney property. But then, I suppose the multiverse wasn't actually being run by Disney. On account of not actually being fiction.

You'd think I'd have grasped this earlier, and yet the realization still managed to hit me like a truck of bricks.

"Tempest?" Kairi spoke up. "You okay?"

"Just having a minor existential crisis. Happens all the time, it'll pass in a few minutes." I sounded like I was being flippant - because, well, I _was_ being flippant - but it was also actually true.

"Umm...?" Sora ummed.

"No, really," I insisted. "Here's something actually important - Luke sent me these coordinates and I don't know how to read them." I handed Sora my phone.

"Well, I don't know how to read 'em either, I just plug the numbers into the navigator and it puts a big dot on the map. 'Fifth Stolen City', huh? How do you steal a whole city? And what happened to the first four?"

"Bats carried it underground. And I don't recall what exactly happened to them, but I think it was nasty stuff in the end. Especially the Second City."

"Yeah," an unexpected voice chimed in. "That's how Mr Eaten got his new name, isn't it?"

In a blink, three Keyblades were pointing at Axel's throat. (Riku would later insist that it was four, and I just couldn't see him from where I was standing.)

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy. I'm not here to pick a fight. Can't, actually."

"Why, and also _how_ are you here, Axel?"

"Well, as I was about to say, Zexion told me that there's a big hole in this tower's magical defenses. One shaped just like me, in fact. That's curious enough, but on closer inspection, the hole only stays open as long as I intend to play nice.

"Which brings me to the _why_. Why would you - 'you' meaning the tower's master, of course - have such an opening? Expecting me to switch sides, perhaps?"

I glanced around the room and noticed that Lea was quite absent. Of course. Axel didn't know.

" _You_ ," Axel continued, with a pointed glance at me, "Tempest, have been putting inconvenient ideas in Roxas's head. That the Organization is only using him, that he needs to escape, and that I'd be willing to help."

"What, are you saying you wouldn't?"

"I said _inconvenient_ ideas, not _untrue_ ones. I'd gladly help him get out from under their thumb, but the kid can't keep a straight face to save his life! Did you also tell him to be careful around Saïx and Xigbar?"

"Uh, yeah...?"

"Yeah, I can tell because he's an open book around everyone else! He's been trying to rope me into his escape in front of Larxene. _Larxene!_ I think the only reason she hasn't ratted him out is that she enjoys tormenting me with the threat to rat him out." He ran his hand through his hair nervously.

"Er..." I considered the implications of everything he was saying. "So... I have a guess, but I like to hear things stated explicitly. _Why_ are you here right now, Axel?"

He ran his hand through his hair again. "I guess I'm here because I need your help. We gotta break from the Organization before Larxene gets bored, and we gotta make sure they don't come after us."

I immediately began formulating a plan, but then Riku spoke up. "How do we know we can trust you?"

"What else do you know about the Fifth City?" I asked.

"Uh, not much. Death doesn't work there, but only as long as you stay out of the sun. Unless you buy this immortality cider that costs a mint."

"How do you know about something like that?" Riku asked.

"They handed me a catalog when I went in through the brass door, and there it was in plain black and white. 'So shall he never die'. They aren't exactly keeping it a _secret_ , it's just got a hefty pricetag."

Riku continued staring suspiciously at Axel, then turned to me. "Well, he's not lying," I told him. "I guess... we can help him out, but keep an eye on him just in case?"

"Yeah, sure, watch me all you like. Nothing up my sleeves today."

"Okay, so then..." Almost unconsciously I pulled out my hair tie and started retying my ponytail. "I think, the first thing you'll need to do is go back, and tell Roxas to _quit talking about escape in front of everyone_. Wait, no, getting him alone will be a pain, they were already suspicious before I sped things up."

"They're still after you and your brother, y'know. Lexaeus is on a mission today to investigate the Fifth City and figure out why Luke was there and when he's likely to be back. Actually, as far as they know, that's why I'm here today, too..."

"Can you get Naminé on your side? I imagine she wants out too."

"Oh, sure, she hates being stuck in the castle. Hey, wait, how do you even know about her? We had explicit orders not to mention her in your presence."

"I'm clever and did a lot of eavesdropping."

We brainstormed further plans for quite a while, but eventually came to the conclusion that we couldn't do anything just yet. So Axel would RTC and pretend he hadn't turned...

"What do I tell 'em about the mission, though?"

"The truth. Luke's probably not heading back to the Fifth City soon, but I will be, but they can't just pop out and grab me again because I'm super suspicious of that possibility all the time now."

... and get Roxas alone, by any means necessary, to tell him that he was in but also give him a serious lecture on opsec.

Then one of them would loop Naminé in on their plans. Or possibly Axel would do that first, and she would deliver the message to Roxas, but the Organization was obviously even more suspicious of her than of Axel. But we kept the possibility open just in case.

Once all three of them were looped in, they would lay low and avoid suspicion until we could come up with a proper plan. Probably something involving getting Sora and Riku to kill off the other Organization members again.

In the meantime, Riku and I would find the Point of Shadow in the Fifth City, and... well, make a point of not clashing with major forces of darkness there? This plan blatantly had some missing steps but I couldn't figure anything out myself without a lot more information on Points themselves.

And I sent Luke a text warning him that the Organization was tracking him and he needed to watch his back.

* * *

What a comprehensive plan we've come up with! It accounts for every element, and most importantly, every person. Nothing was forgotten, so there's no concerning questions to be raised about why that might be the case.

Not sure what these tears are about.

Reviews are good, faves and follows are good, and I hope y'all are looking forward to the first proper world chapter as much as I am!


	9. 8: Arriving in the Fifth City

To an anonymous reviewer: Your idea is intriguing. I'd certainly read it if someone else wrote it. If I _really_ liked it, I might even plug it here. But this story's a bit too established in its tone to become that story.

There's always omake, though.

To all readers: Fallen London has a _very_ good soundtrack, and I highly recommend listening to it during the relevant portion of this chapter. Or any other time, really. (Especially since the relevant portion of this chapter ended up being largely moved to _next_ chapter. Oops.) Since FFN forbids off-site links, I'll just tell you that you should find it without trouble by typing "Fallen London OST" into your favorite search engine.

* * *

After a proper night's sleep, I was once again ready to face the worlds. Riku also seemed fully recuperated, as he had promised. So we were officially ready to head to the Fifth City.

But before we left, I wanted to speak to Aqua.

"Are you certain?" Yen Sid asked. "Her convalescence is of course being aided by magic, and she was to begin with in remarkable form even considering the length of her time in the Realm of Darkness, but even so, it will be some hours before she is awake. Can you afford such a delay?"

I considered it for a while. "Yeah, actually. In fact, it might be better. I don't know what to do when I get where I'm going, and some research on, like, sealing magic or the like could help."

So I spent the morning in the library looking for something that could prevent Points of Shadow from becoming spacetime-rending yin-yang bombs, while Riku and Sora helped Kairi and Lea train.

"Wait, Sora's not going out to hunt Heartless?"

"He also wishes to speak to Aqua."

And that settled that.

After skimming through a considerable stack of possibly-relevant books, I was despairing of finding anything I could actually _use_.

The problem, it seemed, with putting up magical shields, was that they would need regular reinforcement. Yet despite ambient background magic demonstrably existing, all of the spells I found required _active_ reinforcement, and most required it to be done by the original caster.

One spell, lacking the original-caster requirement, looked _almost_ promising, but it had to be reinforced significantly more often than any of the others, roughly three times every two days. I set that one aside, hoping I could get some instruction from Yen Sid on modifying spells and make this one work better.

The second problem, of course, was that all of the spells were far more powerful than what I needed; they were designed to block direct attack, and all I needed to block was the energy released by nearby combat.

I blinked at this thought. I closed the book, picked it up in both hands, and carefully smacked myself in the forehead with it.

"Uh... you okay, Tempest?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Lea. I've just spent three hours looking in the wrong section of the library." I reopened the book I had set aside, removed its check-out card, carefully printed my name on it, and dropped it in the box near the entrance. Then I did the same with another shield book from which I would study the basic Reflect spell, and the Magnet book from yesterday.

"This shield is meant for combat use. All these shields are. I'm looking for a different kind of barrier, and didn't realize they'd have their own section. And I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that I won't have time to start looking there. But I can probably modify this shield into what I want, it'll just be more of a pain than it could have been."

Lea shrugged. "Dunno how you guessed, but yeah. Aqua's awake and ready to chat. And Riku wants to move out as soon as you finish your conversation."

I nodded, placing the books in my bag. "Sure. I'll head down."

XXXXXXXXXX

Coincidentally, Sora was leaving the infirmary at just the moment I arrived. He was grumbling about something, though I couldn't make out any particular words.

"Hey, Sora. Everything going okay?"

"Not really... but I should probably keep quiet. 'Loose lips sink ships', you know."

"...Ships?"

"I mean, _metaphorically_. I was thinking about it, and... I accidentally leaked Riku's mission to you, didn't I?"

"Mm? How d'you figure?"

"Well, I did tell you Riku had a job in the Realm of Darkness. And you weren't at all surprised when he came back with Aqua. That surprised _me_ \- we met once, when me and Riku were kids, and Riku had to remind me who she even was. You knew she was there, didn't you?"

I nodded. "I have some unfair advantages when it comes to knowing things. I think most people wouldn't have been able to figure out Riku's exact mission just from the fact that it's in the Realm of Darkness. Xehanort probably would have, though, so yeah, you shouldn't tell anyone _anything_ about future missions unless you think they can help."

Sora nodded, thinking about it. "Right now, I don't think there's much to be done, but I might get back to you on that. And now, I gotta go look for Maleficent's next big Heartless. See ya!"

And with that, he headed off. I entered the infirmary. Aqua was sitting against her bed's headboard, eyes closed in thought.

"Master Aqua?" As we were total strangers, I figured the polite approach would be optimal.

She started at the sound of my voice. "Please... don't call me Master." Swingnamiss.

"Uh, hm. So, what _should_ I call you? Lady Aqua? Miss Aqua?"

"Just- just Aqua is quite sufficient," she said, sounding exhausted already.

I nodded. "I'm Tempest. Just Tempest is fine for me, too, or Miss Tempest, if that's too familiar for you."

"All right, _Miss_ Tempest," she said. Rather pointedly. Dang it. "I don't believe Yen Sid mentioned your business here."

"Here in general, or here with you?"

"I meant with me, but both would be enlightening," she said, smiling faux-sweetly.

"Well, ah..." _I have made_ _ **several**_ _mistakes this minute._ "In general, I'm trying to help stop Xehanort and Maleficent and Organization XIII, since they're all kind of a big danger.

"And as for why I'm speaking to you..." I summoned my Keyblade. "As far as I can tell, I just got this one day out of nowhere. I'm entirely self-taught. And while it's worked out fine so far, I literally do not know what sort of vital information I'm missing without a proper teacher.

"Now, I know you're in no shape to do training right now, and that's fine. Myself, I'm too busy with all this to sit down and do training either. But... at some point, when things have settled down a little, I'm going to need an expert's instruction."

Aqua closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm... I _**want**_ to say I'm honored that you would consider me. But... I'm just not w-"

"And, I mean, you don't have to decide yet!" I couldn't stop her from thinking it, but I would still stop her from _saying_ she wasn't worthy. I had no real grounds to judge that, but still. "You're still recovering, I'm still busy. Just think about it, for now." A knock at the door. "And that'll be Riku. I'll head out for now, and you can get back to resting." And I quickly slipped out before she could voice any more objections.

It was, indeed, Riku knocking on the door. "So, how'd it go?"

"Total bust. In retrospect I clearly shouldn't have sprung this on her at the literal first available opportunity. Oh well, mistakes made, can't unmake 'em. I'll just have to adapt."

"Well, I look forward to seeing that." I raised an eyebrow - what did he mean by that? But he just grinned mysteriously and held out a book. "You might want this, by the way."

I glanced at the cover and blinked. _Best Long-Term Fortification Spells Of The Late '80s._ "Why yes, I very much do want this. Thank you, Riku."

"You're welcome. Now let's get to the ship."

It seemed that I would have to rethink my evaluation of Riku. Of course I knew he was smart, but this was... _significantly_ more insightful than I had been expecting.

... Is the late '80s recent in this calendar system, or ancient? What year was it _now_? Actually, which world was that book even written in? If it wasn't this one, literally any amount of time could have passed, and there'd be zero good way to tell. Groan.

XXXXXXXXXX

One of the less-utilized features of Gummi Ships is that their frames are held together entirely by magic. This means that one can rearrange one's ship's parts in whatever configuration one desires, which proves remarkably useful when attempting to disguise a spacefaring vehicle as a zeefaring one.

As Riku pulled the ship into port at Wolfstack Docks, I rummaged through my possessions.

"They won't take munny here, or not directly. The Bazaar does buy currency from other parts of this world, so we could probably exchange munny the same way. Failing that, of course, we have all these shards and gems to sell. Will they let us stop by the Bazaar before paying the docking fee? How else could they handle new arrivals?"

"Relax, Tempest. Axel got in and out without trouble, didn't he?"

"That's true," I admitted, recalling the tale Axel had told. "They must have something."

The two of us debarked, and while Riku handled the matter of the docking fees, I began trying to track our target.

"I wish I'd paid more attention to the map of this place when I had one..."

"Psst!"

I looked up. "Er... who's there?" I asked cautiously.

"Down here."

I looked downward in the direction of the voice. "Oh! It's a cat! Hello there, cat!"

"Hello yourself, human," said the ginger tabby. "You're an outsider, aren't you? I don't mean from the Surface, I mean even further away than that."

I rubbed my neck faux-nervously as I knelt down to pet the feline. "I believe I'm contractually obligated to answer that question with a 'no'."

"Ahh, I knew it. You have the same smell as those two fellows in black cloaks. Thought they were being sneaky, they did, but they weren't even trying to keep out of _our_ sight."

"Oh y'know, I think they might not realize cats here are sapient. Speaking of which, I probably should have remembered to mention that to my partner..."

"Oh? Are you two together?"

" _Investigative_ partner," I clarified. "He's rather too young for me in the other sense... He's totally going to flip when a cat talks to him. Possibly literally."

The cat made an odd noise that seemed to be the feline equivalent of a chuckle. "An amusing image, that. You seemed to be looking for something."

"A map of the city, for starters."

"Oh, certainly. But the black-coated men had maps, and they couldn't find it."

"Oh? But I think they don't actually know what they're looking for. They probably know that I'm looking for something, and trying to beat me to it."

"And they won't know it when they see it?"

"Unlikely. It's a place, not a thing, and I'm not aware of any _visible_ indicators. Though here in the Neath, maybe it's different..."

" _Prrr_ haps. City maps are easily found in the Bazaar, which is that way. And unfortunately, I have other business to get to, but before I do..."

The cat leapt onto my shoulder and leaned closely into my ear to whisper:

"Beware. The Taciturn Stalwart still lurks the Neath."

"What? Why-" But the cat was already gone.

XXXXXXXXXX

"So what?" asked Riku. "I've beaten Lexaeus before, I can do it again."

"I'm not worried about your ability to beat him, I'm worried about the Point. Sora and/or Kairi did _tell_ you what happened, right?"

"So we make sure not to fight him _at_ the Point. I'm hardly pure light like Kairi is, and I've gotten the impression that Nobodies aren't actually pure darkness. With that relatively little contrast, I bet we'd need to literally be on top of it."

"You're lighter than you think, Riku - and more to the point, we don't have any idea of _my_ light level."

"Okay, a _little_ caution is called for. But that's different from panic. And the radars have been pointing near due north the entire time we've been here, so it's clearly pretty far away."

"I do hope it's not at the Avid Horizon... I don't know how to get there without Seeking the Name."

"And we can't just do that, I take it?"

"Well, it'd kill us repeatedly - we'd get better, but then we'd be stuck here. It's terrifyingly self-destructive, and also just terrifying in general. It would drive us mad, again repeatedly. Also, it'd take months, and we're on a time limit."

"Right. No Seeking the Name, then."

"Anyway, it might not be at the Avid Horizon at all. We should definitely establish where it is before worrying about bizarre requirements to get there."

Riku nodded. "Hold up. You hear that?"

"Heh, I was wonderin' how long it'd take you two to notice." A Grubby Urchin dropped nimbly from above and gave a little bow. "You two're new round the Neath, right? People're wantin' to know what you're addressed as."

"Addressed...?" asked Riku.

"Y'know, like 'sir' or 'madam' or 'lord' or 'captain'. I see you're a Keyblade Master, I can tell people to use that title too."

"Whoa! Me being a Keyblade Master is a _secret_. Keyblades _being a thing_ is a secret. Don't tell anyone either of those things."

"Awright, I'll keep my mouf shut. See, that's why I ask these fings! Look, if you need a moment to fink, I'll ask your friend first." He turned to me.

"Oh, well, I prefer just my first name, Tempest. Miss Tempest if that's too familiar. And she/her pronouns."

"Awright, Miss Tempest. And you?"

"Riku. He/him."

The Grubby Urchin nodded. "Just so you know, there's a lot a people in London what won't like callin a stranger by 'is first name. You got somethin' less familiar those folk can use, or should I tell 'em to shove off and do it anyway?"

"I guess if they insist, you can tell them to call me Master Riku. Just don't tell them what I'm a Master _of_."

"Course not. Top secret." He made a lip-zipping motion. "I'll make sure people know. Fanks."

Riku watched the Grubby Urchin zip off into the rooftops to spread the word. "That was weird."

"Ehh. I wish there had been someone like that back in my world."

"Yeah, that would be a net benefit... But I was referring to how he could tell I was a Keyblade Master."

"Oh, that? ... I think he can just tell when people have accomplishments that entitle them to, uh, titles. Either that or the Mark of Mastery is an actual detectable quality, rather than a metaphor for being good enough at Keyblading to be a Master."

Riku snickered. "No, the first one sounds much more plausible. Anyway. We've got work to do."

I nodded and opened up my map of London.

* * *

... Y'know, I had expected the preparatory intro bit to be shorter. Instead, it took up, what, more than half the chapter? If I had outlined this, I would have seen it coming.

Next chapter: more Fallen London! Probably no boss fight, because Fallen London doesn't really have those, and also we're specifically trying to _avoid_ clashes in this story.


	10. 9: A Twist in their Tale!

_~Exactly three weeks later...~_

Well, I knew I wouldn't keep up a chapter a week forever. Shrug.

* * *

"You two... You look like you've forgotten something important."

We stopped in our tracks. The various merchants in the Bazaar always called out to passersby, hawking their wares, but something about this struck a chord.

"That's a fairly easy guess," I said. "I'll admit I'm rather more scatterbrained than most, but even average people are quite forgetful."

"True, of course," she said, leaning forward. "But on you two, I see traces of irrigo. Been to the Cave of the Nadir lately?"

"Never heard of it, actually," Riku said. "Sorry to bust your cold reading."

"What? But... are you sure you weren't there by accident, maybe?"

"Unlikely," I said. "My understanding is that the place is quite difficult to reach."

"Oh, it's a real place?"

"Yeah. I've never been, and haven't done much research on that particular section of the Neath, but given the amount of irrigo in the place, I suspect that even if one knows its location, _retaining_ that knowledge poses a second conundrum."

"Hm. And you think we've been there, because we have traces of this irrigo?"

"Yes... but perhaps they came from elsewhere. It's only _usually_ the Cave of the Nadir." The merchant shook her head. "Even if you don't remember where or how, the irrigo is there." She ducked under her booth and retrieved a small pot of ink.

The color was like nothing either of us had seen outside this world. One might be tempted to call it blue or violet, if not for the fact that it plainly wasn't either color.

"This is Violant. The color of troublesome connections. It's not rare, or hard to make, but the Masters don't like it to be too freely available, so it's heavily taxed. If you ever remember what you forgot, write it in this color, and you'll never forget it again."

"Thanks, but we're not interes-"

"Wait." I looked closer at the ink. "I don't remember what or how, but... there _is_ something important that was forgotten. I'm sure of it. Something about... not Sora."

"Not Sora? That doesn't exactly narrow it down."

"Well, I've forgotten it, haven't I? That's the entire reason this interesting color is relevant."

Riku sighed. "It's your budget... and honestly, I have a similar feeling."

"How much, then?"

"For you? Twelve echoes, fifty pence."

I winced. Of course I had left space in the budget precisely for scenarios of this kind, but that was a substantial portion of it. "That's quite a pricetag."

The merchant nodded. "Most of it is the tax, unfortunately. Between that and the manufacturing costs - also quite affected by the tax - I haven't got much room to bargain."

"Hmmm..."

"Tell you what, I'll knock off the fifty pence. Can't go any lower than that. Just can't."

"Okay, we can call that a deal."

Riku nodded as I made the transaction. "Well, now that that's handled, let's get back to our main business here."

XXXXXXXXXX

"This is annoying."

The two of us had come to a conclusion. We had explored most of mainland London, from Wolfstack Docks to The Flit to the Shuttered Palace, and the radar had never deviated from nearly due north. Therefore...

"We're gonna have to go to zee for real."

"Well, we can modify the Gummi Ship for that without much trouble." While it currently _looked_ like a zeefaring vessel, this was a rough facade, meant only to fool casual inspection, and not to actually serve in this capacity.

"Though," Riku continued, "doing that without cluing in the locals on Gummi technology might be a bit harder."

"We're gonna need a crew, I think. Gummi Ships aren't hard to fly - or zail, either - but against the various zee creatures, we're gonna want more than just our (admittedly quite competent) selves. Given this, it'll probably be easier to just have them help out with the refitting and buy their silence."

"And how much is that likely to cost?"

I hefted a small pouch of rostygold. "A few rounds, probably." Riku raised an eyebrow. "They're _zailors_ , Riku, of course they hang around in the bars."

"Well, don't get _too_ into it. You just know that if you come back smashed and I have to take care of you, _that_ will be the moment Xehanort or someone picks to ambush us."

"No need to fret overmuch about _that_ possibility; my body's tolerance for alcohol well exceeds my taste for the stuff." _Regrettably so_ , I thought to myself. I'm not sure why I remember that so clearly. I guess I was feeling edgy that day?

XXXXXXXXXX

After some recruiting and some reconfiguration, the Gummi Ship was finally zeeworthy. Extremely zeeworthy, in fact.

"Y'know," I mused as creatures of the deep thrashed ineffectually below, "we could totally hover at this height _all the time_. It doesn't actually consume any extra fuel or anything."

"Sure, but we'd stick out like a sore thumb. Also, the crew isn't fond of it."

"Oi, Cap'n, the beasties have given up! Can we get down now, 'fore people start gettin' airsick?"

"Case in point."

I sighed. "I told you we should have made it a zubmarine, instead."

"Maybe next time."

"Oi! Cap'n!"

"Yes, mate, we're descending!"

"Not that! Your radars are startin' to veer!"

Riku and I exchanged a glance. "Well," I said, "it's not the Avid Horizon. We're not _that_ far north yet."

"Wasn't it just a nondescript spot, back in Radiant Garden? Maybe there's nothing special about it here, either."

"Cap'n?"

"Keep following the radars," Riku called down. "Carefully."

A short while later, the radars had led the ship to a small island. The two of us debarked, leaving the crew behind. "You can relax a bit," I declared, "but don't break out the rum just yet."

Exploring it wasn't a lengthy task. It had apparently once been inhabited; in addition to a ruined cottage, there was a ruined farm plot and a disconcertingly intact well. But the radars didn't lead to any of these, only to a nondescript point in an empty field. Not far from the well, and further from the cottage, though it was still in sight.

"You work out a spell for locking it off?"

"Yeah, about that - that book you gave me, how did you find it?"

"Just asked Yen Sid about fortification spells, he had one of the brooms grab it for me. Why?"

"It has a spell in it that seems explicitly designed for this purpose. Not only does it never need reinforcement, it actually emanates a subtle mental compulsion to leave calmly. Like, specifically, calmly and without a fight."

"Huh. I didn't actually read it. That's lucky, though."

"Maybe." I summoned my Kingdom Key and began tracing the appropriate magic sigils, while Riku kept watch.

"So it's here," said a dark voice, suddenly. Riku whirled to face the source, instantly summoning Way to the Dawn. "...You're not surprised," Lexaeus said, looking disappointed.

"We had advance warning," Riku retorted.

"Interesting. We were careless. Still. You won't be claiming it."

"You don't even know what 'it' _is_!"

"Do I need to?"

Riku shrugged. "I suppose if you could just pummel us into the ground, that would sort of inherently stop us." He raised his Keyblade. "Wanna give it a go?"

Lexaeus grinned and hefted his axe sword.

"Uh, whatever you two do, don't disrupt this," I said. "Messing with this magic would be a major disaster."

"Oh? I'll be careful, then." Lexaeus rushed at Riku, who parried his swings without trouble for a few moments, until he charged straight _past_ -

at which point I nimbly dodged, and with a wave of my Keyblade, the sigils became magical ropes and bound Lexaeus on the spot.

"Did you _actually think_ that I would just _announce_ that I'm this huge weak point right in front of you, like some kind of... _announcey-girl_?"

"I _was_ wondering why you hadn't just told me about that while we were zailing here."

"Yeah, the spell isn't unstable at all. It's actually really carefully designed so that right up to the last moment, it's always possible to siphon the magic back out and do something else. Like tie up someone attacking you."

"And the magical ropes?"

"I kinda improvised those, actually. They're probably super inefficient. So I guess we should do something about Lexaeus before he snaps them." I raised my Keyblade and pointed it straight up.

"Wait, is this why - did you plan _all_ of this?"

"I actually didn't plan any of it, I just set up some measures in case I spotted a use for them. I'm not Light Yagami."

"Oh, so she's clever _and_ modest," Lexaeus spat. " _Get it over with_. Your prattle is tiring."

... Weirdly, that stung a bit. Why I even cared what he had to say is still beyond me to this day. But I shook it off quickly. "You're right, actually. I _shouldn't_ be prattling." I launched a sparkling orb of red magic toward the false-stars. "I should be getting out of the blast zone."

I swiftly retreated, as the Gummi Ship unleashed every weapon it had on the spot directly below my signal.

"The zailors we hired are farther away from the Point, which makes a difference, and I imagine that they're probably not as light as the two of us." Riku raised an eyebrow at this. "Hey, they're randomly selected denizens, and you're a Keyblade Master. It's a safe bet."

After a few moments, the barrage ended.

"You think they got him?" Riku asked lightly.

I peered curiously into the clearing smoke. I didn't feel anything strange perpendicular to reality, so I had at least been right about the sensitivity of the Point.

Suddenly, Lexaeus charged, and with a single swipe of his axe sword, knocked me clear out of the empty field, where I collided with the well.

I was in pretty bad shape - I could only barely see Riku holding off the enemy. He didn't even have room to Cure me. And something else was wrong that I couldn't put my finger on... though that could have been because I couldn't move my fingers.

Riku blocked one earth-shattering blow, the force of which sent him skidding all the way to where I lay. "Heal," he intoned, and I quickly returned to my feet as my wounds closed and my vision cleared.

Lexaeus wasn't going to let us catch our breath, though. He was already charging to deliver a follow-up strike, which we barely dodged.

While Riku parried his attacks head-on, I slipped behind Lexaeus and waited for an opening.

There! I leaped in to hit Lexaeus with one decisive blow, as heavy as I could make it. And then I felt it.

 _Damn it, that's what was wrong!_

Lexaeus staggered, and Riku took this chance to deliver a series of quick strikes. I, meanwhile, was still distracted and barely got in a single strike.

 _Riku was holding back to avoid setting off the Point! And I have it worse, because I'm apparently lighter and have to hold back even more - on top of being weaker to begin with!_

 _But Lexaeus is fighting at full strength, because he either doesn't know or doesn't care! So even though Riku is the stronger one, Lexaeus is still wildly overpowering him!_

 _How are we supposed to handle this? Either he ends us here, or we set off the Point, and..._

 _... huh._

"Riku! Forget the Point! Just pummel him!"

"What?" they both said simultaneously. Riku recovered first, and unleashed his full power in a single mighty blow - presumably trusting that I knew what I was talking about.

Lexaeus dropped his axe sword and fell to his knees. "What...? But... you were..."

"Holding back." The island rumbled ominously. "Specifically to prevent _that_ , actually... Tempest, I hope you know what you're doing."

"Ship. Get to the ship!"

* * *

This chapter, and parts of the one before, were originally written in a slightly different style. For funsies, and stuff. But I hated it, so I rewrote them in my normal style. For posterity, the original version is backed up on Google docs; find the link if you're interested at **listography dot com slash wingedcatgirl slash notes slash ADSIP** and wow I just realized that that's kind of an annoying URL. I guess that's what happens when I archive my stuff on a web site that insists posts have to have both a category and a title.

Mind you, it is **_mostly_** the same. You're not missing out on hot deleted scenes, here.

Anyway. Obligatory reminder that all fanfic writers love reviews.


	11. 10: This is fine

ATUHOR'S NOSE: The only thing I had to say here was invalidated when I rewrote the chapter-and-a-half that it applied to.

* * *

"Everyone brace yourselves, this is gonna be nasty!"

Despite preparing in advance a signal meaning "artillery support on this location", I somehow _hadn't_ prepared a signal for the far more predictable message of "the Point went off, prepare to scram at max speed". Which, I suppose, shows something about my thought process.

The crew were naturally not expecting their captains to burst onto the deck and shout at them about imminent danger, but to their credit, they did in fact brace themselves before the

 _ **BOOM ! !**_

... yeah, that thing.

Riku recovered before I did. "We're lifting off. We need to see the aftermath. Then we're heading back to London."

It wasn't nice. The destruction of an abandoned, uninhabited island is inherently less troublesome than an equally-sized explosion in a major population center - but even so, it was _**not**_ nice.

Amazingly, Lexaeus had somehow survived the blast. I saw him pick himself up, look around in what I could only assume was _serious_ confusion, and take a Corridor of Darkness out.

The island was shattered, of course. The cottage was leveled, the farm plot was ruined, not to mention the terrain itself was largely destroyed... unsettlingly, the well was _still_ intact. It was just much more exposed.

I shivered. "Damned wells around here..."

"You okay, Tempest?"

"Yeah. ... I don't think we have much left to do here. Let's drop off the crew and... I do have one thing I want to do before I go. It will take some time, though." I paused to think. "I think my phone and your... whatever your thing is, operate on entirely separate networks. And I don't know anyone who has both things..."

"If you're gonna stay here, you can take mine, and I can get another from Yen Sid. They don't have identities, so nobody will get confused and think you're me."

XXXXXXXXXX

After Riku left, I headed to the Bazaar to pick up relevant supplies.

And then I looked around some more.

And some more.

I texted Luke and asked about what he'd found.

... I was stalling, yes. I didn't really like what I was considering. But now I was in a conversation and I can't just cut him off, surely. Yes. Unassailable logic.

 _Three so far. One in what appears to be Shibuya. It seemed expected, for some reason. One in the Pride Lands, of all places. And one in a world I don't recognize. Looks like an interconnected set of sub-worlds, like Halloween and Christmas Town, but instead one looks like an alternate Earth and one looks like... a bunch of corn fields. And it has a bunch of others that are harder to see._

 _That sounds like Star vs. Why is it always something I'm familiar with? I haven't heard about a Yuri on Ice world, for example. Or Gears of War, or Gravity's Rainbow, or comic books. Or for that matter, a world that doesn't appear to be related to any Earth fiction at all._

 _It's... I think this multiverse has a sense of drama, honestly._

 _All I'm saying is, if we get a Homestuck world I'm gonna riot. By myself, somehow, yes._

 _Snrk._

 _Uh, speaking of a sense of drama, before I check up on Axel et al, I'm about to do something super stupid, but if the multiverse is pro-drama, maybe that's a good thing._

 _... How stupid are we talking here?_

 _Stupid enough that I'm hoping you can convince me it won't work._

XXXXXXXXXX

A short and uneventful flight brought me to Yen Sid's Tower, where events were very much _not_ uneventful, and more shocking and chaotic.

The roof of the tower was blasted off, and Xaldin was flying around the exposed top floor, exchanging blasts with Yen Sid.

As a Keyblade Master, even long retired, Yen Sid would have been more than a match for Xaldin in a straight-up fight. But of course, this was not a straight-up fight. Xaldin was attempting to demolish the tower, and Yen Sid needed to defend both the structure and himself.

Yen Sid launched another blast of magic at his enemy. "Leave this place, for your own good!"

"For my own good? How droll. How many times will you repeat that?"

"I would say, 'until _you_ listen to me', but I suppose we both know that won't happen." And for just a second, the old Master glanced directly at me.

Oh, it's a code. He wants _me_ to leave, before Xaldin spots me and finds some way to exploit my presence.

...

Honestly, screw that. With all due respect to a Keyblade Master who-knows-how-many years my senior... just running off and saving myself has never been my style.

I'd never used a Keyblade Glider in combat before. I suppose I was gonna have to learn eventually.

Since he was currently distracted fighting Yen Sid, Xaldin still hadn't actually spotted me yet. So, quietly, I glided behind him, carefully avoiding his spears, and held out one hand. _Learn._

Then, still quietly, I backed away and charged my opening attack. "Break!"

"What the -?" Xaldin whirled around just in time to spot me before his legs and waist became encased in stone and he became too heavy to stay afloat.

"Sneak attack, bitch!" I shouted with perhaps more glee than strictly necessary.

Xaldin crashed to the tower's exposed top floor, and Yen Sid blasted him with Fire. As he picked himself up, I closed the distance with my stolen Jump, knocking him back down.

"You did not need to join this battle," Yen Sid said.

"True, but here I am anyway," I said, calling my Keyblade back to my hand in its weapon form. Yen Sid frowned slightly at its new shape, to which I could only give a half shrug.

"Oh, how _gallant_ she is," Xaldin snarked as he picked himself up. " _Selflessly_ taking any opportunity to fling herself into combat. How typical."

"Really? I don't see _you_ trying to negotiate a truce." The three of us stood there a moment, holding our weapons and staring.

"Well, I must admit, you've quite exposed my hypocrisy." A pause, and then he charged at me full-force.

I dodged swiftly, and Yen Sid summoned his Keyblade - I had never seen it before and didn't know its name, but it _looked_ like a more venerable version of Star Seeker.

I was just getting excited to see the old master in action when I realized that he was, in fact, tossing his Keyblade to me.

"What?" I blurted out, barely managing to catch his weapon in my off hand.

"Get back on your Glider, Tempest. If you're going to ignore my advice and fight, I must insist you do it properly."

All at once, several reasons occurred to me why Yen Sid might insist on having me wield "Star Seeker Prior" (as I was calling it in my head, in lieu of whatever its actual name was). In a flash, my own Keyblade was back in Glider form and under my feet.

"My, a proper air battle!" Xaldin said. "I haven't had one of those in... ever, actually."

"Then it'll be the first time for both of us. How romantic." I charged at him head-on, but instead of striking I cast Reflect, and used the Glider's velocity to push my shield of force into his shield of wind.

Both shields shattered, but I had braced myself and Xaldin hadn't, so I recovered immediately while he staggered. I held out my free hand to Learn once more, then backed away, covering my movement with blasts of Stone. (I carefully refrained from wondering about where exactly the stone could possibly be coming from when we were both hovering multiple stories above the ground.)

Xaldin, apparently sick of my shit, had formed his spears into that wind dragon thing and was preparing to fire his lazer. Actually, from the arrangement of the spears, it looked like he was preparing to fire _multiple_ lazers.

While he charged, I glanced around, looking for cover. Nothing but the tower, and I didn't particularly want that taking _more_ damage. So lacking something to duck behind, I'd just have to -

"Thunder!" Bolts of lightning flashed through Xaldin, shocking him out of his focus. _Oh, right, there's a third participant in this battle._

Before he recovered, I quickly cast another Break. This one was much less effective; only his left leg was entombed. (The book I'd learned the spell from had warned about this; targets of Break would acclimatize to it quickly, making it impractical for repeated use.) But it was enough to destabilize him, and he fell to the ground.

With most of his body still free, he managed to land gracefully this time instead of catastrophically, but I _again_ knocked him down with a stolen Jump. (I had always found it odd in the games that he could never figure out how to counter his own attack. Seeing it in real life did _not_ make it less strange.)

"I must admit, I'm a bit baffled," he said. "Don't terrifying and destructive things happen when you fight full-force? Oughtn't you to be holding back a bit?"

"Uh..." I had, in fact, been at both Points when they went off, but that really wasn't how it worked. "Yeah, that's totally a true statement. Why do you think I keep messing with you with Break, and only really attacking you with your own Jump move?"

"Oh, _is_ that a valid loophole?" He held his position for a moment, considering. "In that case, we'll have to send someone else after you." A chime emanated from his pocket. "Well, sounds like my work here is done anyway. Farewell!" And he opened a Corridor and left, just like that.

I blinked a few times. "W... what does _that_ imply?"

I dropped to the ground, dismissing my Keyblade Glider as Yen Sid's Keyblade returned to his hand. (Or more precisely, to his... personal Keyblade-space. Or whatever it's called. Details.)

"I didn't even get to hit him with it."

"You did cast magic with it, though."

"Oh yeah, that's also a thing Keyblades do."

Suddenly, Riku's communicator went off. And my phone. And Yen Sid's communicator.

Less sure how to operate Riku's communicator if I needed a non-obvious function like checking voicemail, I decided to answer that first.

"Tempest here. How do these things work?"

"This is Sora - I'll explain the details later, but everyone should be connected to this and can hear and speak, unless they didn't pick up. Everyone needs to hear this, so sound off so I know who to fill in later."

"Kairi here, but you knew that, I'm five feet away from you."

"Lea here, is this connected to Dil- I mean, Xaldin's raid on our tower?"

"Riku here - you serious? Lexaeus just showed up to waste my time again. Are they up to something?"

"Maybe! Demyx just threw a gazillion water clones at us but turned around and took off after a few minutes."

"Aqua here - who are these people that are all after us at once?"

"Short story, they're Xehanort's minions. We can explain the long story later. I just got a text from Luke that Zexion picked a fight with him. They really were trying to keep us all busy at once for a while, huh? What for?"

"Yen Sid speaking. Axel has just entered the tower. He is rather agitated. Calm yourself, Axel! Here, just take mine."

"Everyone's mobilized! They've all got 'top priority special missions' all of a sudden, except Saïx, Xigbar, and me! They know something!"

"Yeah, and if they catch you out of place, they'll know _you_ know something! Where are they expecting you to be right now?" I asked.

"They gave me a busywork mission in Twilight Town, but you can't expect me to just wait around and do what they want!"

"No," Riku said, "but you can _look like_ that's what you're doing, until it's time to strike back."

"It doesn't sound like we _have_ much time to work with," Kairi said.

"Well, wait, what exactly are we planning?" Sora asked.

"Well, wasn't the original plan to get Roxas and Naminé out of there?" I asked. "Where are they?"

"Naminé was being held in the same place, last I checked. Roxas was gone when I woke up. Saïx said he sent him on a mission, but wouldn't say anything else."

"Hmm," I hmmed. "I don't like that, but... Hey, these things are tuned to a particular frequency or some such thing, right?"

"Yeah," Sora said, "something about magical resonance."

"Well, Axel, get another one from Yen Sid, tuned to a different frequency. There should only be two of those - I guess Yen Sid could hold the other one? I'm not sure it matters who, but he's right there already. Take it, finish your busywork, and tell us when you're about to officially RTC. By then, we'll have figured out enough to fill you in."

"If you say so... I hope you know what you're doing."

A brief pause.

"Yen Sid speaking. Axel has departed."

"That was _**so**_ weird!" Lea burst out. "Like, I knew he was up and walking around, but I'd never actually interacted with the guy."

"I'm guessing that unnecessary relay is to keep Axel from finding about Lea by accident?" Riku said.

"Yeah. I have no clue what to do about that, but I figured we couldn't make him _un_ -find-out, so we'll keep this up our sleeves for now. Now, as for a plan..."

XXXXXXXXXX

 _The Curious Lady took a deep breath and set a candle. But she hesitated to light it._

 _"... I'll only try it once. If it fails, that'll be my sign."_

 _"Cold feet? I thought you'd decided this was the only way."_

 _"That logic is the_ reason _I'm hesitant, Cat."_

 _"The hour's near. Don't think about it too long, or you'll be waiting til tomorrow. Drink up. Or don't. Your call."_

XXXXXXXXXX

 _You know you could just decide later, Tempest._

 _Not really. You know why. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it can be undone later, when it's not needed anymore._

 _Hmm._

 _Plus it'll get the devils off my back, if I ever come here again. That's an upside, right?_

* * *

 **Tempest acquired a new Keychain: Voice of the Well**

 **Riku acquired a new Keychain: Necessary Connections**

* * *

I can tell I'm getting right into my character's head, because just like her, I have _no idea_ where I'm going with this. Oh well! Heh... well.


	12. Jiminy's Journal Interlude 2

**The Cats**

Cats in the Neath are sapient, because...well, I get most of my Neath facts from Tempest, and she can't remember why. She settled on "probably because the Sun isn't around to tell them they can't," which doesn't answer much.

Traditionally, if you catch a cat, it tells you secrets. But sometimes, for their own ends, they'll volunteer information for free. So why did the cats want us to be warned about Lexaeus? Perhaps we'll never know.

* * *

 **The Docks**

Typical sea folk, as far as I can see. When they're ashore, they hang around in bars, drinking beer and singing shanties. Buying a few rounds is an easy way to get on their good side, and they're handy if you need people to crew your ship.

I know they're grown men, but I'm just not comfortable with all this boozing. I'm glad Pinocchio is safe at home.

* * *

 **The Urchins**

Strange children who live on the rooftops, or even higher. They're good at heart, but the lack of adult supervision has led them to become devious tricksters. Tempest is fond of them, but for my part, I think I'll ask the Blue Fairy if she knows any more consciences in need of a job.

* * *

 **Grubby Urchin**

This boy has apparently taken it on himself to make sure everyone in London is addressed properly. For newcomers, he'll do this for free, but if you decide to go by something else later, it's apparently more difficult to get the new word out, so he takes a small payment in "whispered hints".

* * *

 **Voice of the Well**

Tempest acquired this Keychain in the Fifth City. The Keyblade's handle and shaft are made of cobblestone (like a well, naturally), and the blade is made of exactly seven pieces of jagged obsidian. Despite its dangerous appearance, it actually decreases physical power, though it boosts magic power in exchange.

I was curious, so I asked Tempest why she received this Keychain instead of Necessary Connections. She said she didn't want to think about it.

* * *

 **Necessary Connections**

Riku acquired this Keychain in the Fifth City. For the most part, this Keyblade has the appearance of an ordinary blade, but the metal is colored "Violant". The color can only be properly seen in the Fifth City; in other worlds, it fades to a purple-tinged cyan color. It's difficult to block and increases the strength of critical hits.

* * *

 **Lexaeus**

He was sent to the Fifth City ahead of us, somehow. The Organization knew we were searching for something, and wanted him to nab it before we could. Which might have been possible, if we had been looking for an _item_. (Really, they ought to have known better. Sora did much the same once before, when he went around sealing Keyholes.)

Riku had beat him once before, and could have done so again without a problem, if he hadn't confronted us right on top of the Point.

* * *

 **Xaldin**

The Organization had him attack Yen Sid's tower. He didn't really accomplish much, aside from distracting Tempest for a few minutes. Unfortunately, that seems to have been exactly the idea. Why they wanted to distract us is less clear.

* * *

 **Nox's Report 6**

The fool had deliberately placed mental manipulation enchantments to ensure clashes! Worse, he had left them on autopilot, despite knowing that clashes at Points of Shadow were exceedingly dangerous even under controlled circumstances.

I didn't know whether he thought he could see them coming in advance and be there to exploit them, or if he just wanted to see the worlds burn. At this point, it likely didn't matter.

My colleagues informed me that we had finally released _Best Long-Term Fortification Spells Of The Late '80s_ to the general public, so at least those in our world would have a chance at shielding any new Points... provided, of course, that they picked up that particular book with no prompting. In the long run, it wouldn't do.

It seemed we had no choice left but to call upon the only faction we knew who were familiar with inter-world travel: Keyblade Masters.


	13. 11: Title expunged (don't ask)

I got distracted writing what was intended to be a future chapter (edit from the future: I ended up using 0% of it, lol!), and I was gonna make a big deal about how most of the delay was probably caused by that - and then I realized I got this out after less than a week. Two, if you ignore the Jiminy's Journal interlude.

Nyooooom, apparently.

For those who like musical accompaniment with their fanfic, search Youtube for "FFXIV Torn from the Heavens", and you can listen to the music I was imagining while writing most of this chapter. Well, after a certain point, I was imagining it muffled in the distance, but still.

* * *

At the moment, the Gummi Ship was hovering near The World That Never Was, a bit outside what we believed to be Organization XIII's detection range, and waiting for Axel to contact us.

A chime from our communicators. (I still didn't know what these things were actually called.)

"Yen Sid speaking. Axel is about to RTC."

"Sora here." He looked to me. Somehow, despite the plan not being all that complex, I had become the de facto leader of this particular battle. (Or possibly _because_ the plan wasn't all that complex.) I nodded. "We're ready to go," Sora finished.

XXXXXXXXXX

The four of us - Sora, Riku, Kairi, and myself - flew through the World That Never Was, two to a Keyblade Glider. Kairi was piloting her Glider, with Sora riding passenger with his Keyblade in hand. Riku and I were doing the same on my Glider.

I hadn't had time to properly teach all three of them how to summon their Keyblade Glider - of course Sora and Riku had watched while I taught Kairi, so probably they _could_ summon their own, but I had only gone over the finer points and confirmed proficiency with Kairi. Anyway, if all four of us were _riding_ our Keyblades, none of us could _wield_ them, which would have put us at a significant disadvantage. (Drive Forms aside - only Sora could use those, and they'd have left one or more of us unable to fight anyway.) We wouldn't have been totally helpless - judging from my fight with Xaldin, magic worked just fine, which was one reason I picked Kairi and myself to be the pilots - but this arrangement worked better overall.

Alarms had been blaring since the moment we beamed down. Nobodies and Heartless swarmed below, with the handful that could fly swooping around and trying to take us down, but between Sora's and Riku's blades and Kairi's and my magic, none even came close.

Without having to navigate the twisted city below, reaching the Castle That Never Was didn't take much time at all. Once we reached the entrance, the three of us channeled power to Riku -

 _"Mega Meteor!_ "

\- and the flaming rock wiped out the entire crowd in one spectacular magic burst.

Kairi and I reverted our Keyblade Gliders to their weapon forms, and we dropped to the ground.

"Was that too easy?" I asked. "That felt way too easy."

I feel I should mention at this point that I was a bit incognito - I was wearing my black cloak, hood up, and letting my voice come out rather deeper than I was normally comfortable with, and I'd swapped my Keychain back to the Kingdom Key.

Hopefully, nobody would spot the incorrect coloring on that last until it was too late.

"Well, we're not _done_ ," Riku said. "We're pretty much just at the front door. And look, it's the welcoming party."

"And what a welcome we've prepared for you," said Saïx. He, Xigbar, and Vexen descended from the entrance. "So sorry we couldn't make this a proper one-to-one fight. I suppose we'll just have to make up for numbers with sheer enthusiasm."

It briefly occurred to me to wonder why Xaldin wasn't among them, before I noticed something significantly more concerning.

Saïx and Xigbar both had yellow eyes.

I leaned over to Sora and whispered, "Do those eyes mean what I think they mean...?"

"... Bad news, probably."

"We know why you're here," Saïx said. "As I've said once already... we don't take resignations."

"Roxas is gonna stay safe and sound with us until we're done with him, you got it?"

Vexen, whose eyes remained their normal piercing green, said nothing. He seemed annoyed, actually.

In a flash, the three Nobodies charged into battle, and Sora, Kairi, and Riku leaped into action. I, on the other hand, quietly opened a Corridor of Darkness and slipped into the Realm of Darkness.

Axel was just arriving there, as planned.

"So, remind me again why we're playing this shell game, instead of just sending your brother in the front door to begin with?"

"That _was_ plan A," I said in my normal voice, "but he ended up not arriving in time. He has half the known universe to traverse, or something."

"So, when he shows, he'll sneak over here and pretend to have been in battle the whole time?"

"Mm-hmm. Now, where might Roxas be held?"

"Well, there's the prison quarter where Naminé's being held. We're gonna get her out too, so we might as well check there first."

With so many alarms going off in the Realm of Light... you wouldn't think that would make a difference, actually.

"Normally, no," Axel explained, "but Zexion set up the alarms on that side to open a hole, just big enough for Heartless to swarm through and overwhelm whoever set it off."

And that's why we weren't encountering many here, in their home.

Soon enough, we reached our exit point. Axel opened the Corridor of Darkness, and we stepped through.

Sure enough, Naminé was there, drawing something. But no Roxas.

"Uh. I gotta admit, Tempest, I was honestly expecting him to be here."

"I wasn't. That would have been too simple. Hey, Naminé, you wanna escape?"

"Um. Are you offering?"

"Uh-huh."

She considered this. "I don't believe we've met, miss...?"

"Oh, right. Like Axel said, I'm Tempest. A friend of Sora, and Roxas, and... several people, really. Hey, did Sora ever remember to thank you for fixing his memory? I know things got complicated right about that time."

She blinked. "That... isn't something that happened. Is it? I never did that, but I remember..."

"Huh?" I went over the timeline in my head again. "Oh! I guess 'you' weren't necessarily there, even though 'Naminé' was. It definitely happened, though. I'm not sure why you remember _anything_ if you weren't there, but memories in this multiverse are weird anyway."

"... Right. I was the one who destroyed his memories in the first place. Or, the other me was. Somehow I didn't think about it til just now. Why - _how_ am I back? I rejoined with Kairi."

I shrugged. "The deus ex machina machine did it, I guess. Hey, I wonder if this means you can be your own person now? Kairi has all of her parts, since the other Naminé gave 'em back. And I know Sora wants Roxas to be his own person. Ooh, I should have asked him about that during the downtime."

Axel and Naminé exchanged a confused look. "Uh, listen," Axel said, "let's not get caught up on infodumping right now. We still gotta find Roxas. Naminé, do you have a guess?"

"Er... Let's check Vexen's lab. He's not likely being held there, but we might find clues."

The prison quarters didn't have a physical exit - it was apparently assumed that anyone with permission to enter or leave would be using a Corridor of Darkness. Well, they weren't _technically_ wrong...

A short trip later, and we emerged in Vexen's lab. There were computer terminals in various locations, hooked up to various devices, and a row of those people-holding tubes iconic of a mad scientist's lair, most empty, but one filled with a single blank-faced puppet. But the centerpiece of the room was definitely the large medical table. Since it was the piece in the center, and all.

"This is creepy," I said.

"This is where Vexen works on his Replica Program," Naminé said.

"Creepy," I repeated.

"Something about this place," Axel muttered.

There weren't many documents lying around unsecured, and none of them seemed relevant. The computers were all locked, too - but there was one stroke of luck. Vexen had, apparently, configured the lock screens to show notifications, so we could see that there were messages from Zexion's lab, even though we couldn't read them.

I glanced at the puppet - a blank Replica? - and turned to Axel. "Should we sabotage this?"

He drew his chakrams. "Smash it all? I've wanted to wreck this place since the first day I saw it."

"Well, I was thinking we'd _steal_ the puppet." A strange look from Axel. "I dunno, I just have this insistent thought that an extra body might be needed... for... something..." I shook my head. "Whatever. I'll figure it out later. Do either of you know how to operate this th-"

 _Pop!_ The tube came loose. I looked over to Naminé, who was pushing buttons on the terminal. "Do forgive me for jumping ahead."

"Hey, we _are_ in a hurry." I carefully lifted the tube out of the fixture. "Oh, it's got a handle and wheels. That's convenient."

"I imagine that's the point," Axel said. "Vexen wouldn't want to lug 500 pounds of person and fluid around in just his arms whenever he needed to move a tube across the room."

"Well, it works out well for me, too. Um... now I need to figure out where I was bringing it _to_..."

"Oh my gosh, I'm being rescued by a total ditz," Naminé muttered, _almost_ quietly enough for me not to hear. (I didn't exactly feel a need to dispute her at the moment.) "Um, here, I can store the blank Replica in one of my memory pods."

"Aren't those all in Castle Oblivion?"

"I think there's one in Twilight Town still..."

"Okay, but like. How are you getting from here to there, for _either_ value of 'there'?"

"I can open Dark Corridors. The prison quarter is set up to stop them being opened from inside the cells, but that's obviously not a problem now."

"The Dark Realm is filled with Heartless, though. Can you defend yourself?"

"... I can dodge. Plus I don't have a heart, so they won't be too attracted to me."

"Hm." After a moment's consideration, I summoned my Keyblade. "Here, you can borrow this," I said, unclipping Voice of the Well. "Umm... I think Castle Oblivion will be safer. We're going to need to head there soon anyway, and I'd bet the mansion in Twilight Town is the first place the Organization is going to look when they realize you've escaped."

Naminé took my Kingdom Key and nodded. "Um... I know you _can_ call this back any time, but how will you know it's _safe_?"

"Hmmm, maybe you could... Ugh, one of these days it's gonna occur to me to carry around _extra communicators_."

"Here, she can take mine," Axel said, handing it over to her. "It's only connected to Yen Sid, but he can relay to Tempest. I still don't know why that is," he said, glaring at me suspiciously, "but it's only mildly inconvenient anyhow."

"Yeah, that works," I said, nodding. "Probably you should - "

"Hey, Yen Sid," Naminé spoke into the communicator, way ahead of me. "Just FYI, Axel handed me his communicator so I could relay to Tempest when it's safe for her to retrieve her Keyblade. Long story. So he'll be out of touch for a bit." She pushed a button on it and it went silent again. "Probably I should keep people in the loop? I agree. Now, you two should keep looking for Roxas," she said, and exited through a Corridor of Darkness.

Axel blinked. "She's... more energetic than I remember her being."

"Well, you pretty much only ever met her when she was your prisoner."

"Eh, true. Anyway, shall we?" He opened another Corridor of Darkness and we traveled to Zexion's lab.

Luckily for us, Zexion was less strict about security than Vexen. He had quite a few relevant files lying around. Axel went through those while I started to try his computer.

Like Vexen's it was locked. Unlike Vexen's, this one had a password hint. "Natural log of negative one, over pi. That sounds familiar, but it's been too long since high school math..."

"Isn't that a rephrasing of Euler's identity? The answer's _i_ , the imaginary unit." I input the single-character password and Zexion's messaging app popped up.

"He always liked having simple passwords and complicated hints. If you failed three times it'd sound an alarm and activate _that_ ," he added, gesturing to... what appeared to be a nondescript wall panel. "Okay, you obviously can't see it, but there's a wicked Tesla coil behind that panel. Wipe the computer, in case you were thinking of just lifting it and hacking it at home, and probably shock you real good too. Larxene had fun helping with that one..."

"Do Tesla coils work like that?" It sounded improbable, but I'd never _researched_ them per se.

"I dunno, maybe he had to modify it. I do know _that thing_ works like that."

Scrolling through Zexion's conversation with Vexen, I mostly saw chatter about the Replica Project. Nothing seemed interesting or relevant enough to commit to memory, even when I tabbed to the other conversations with other members.

HIs documents mostly contained writeups on older projects. I opened a few, but they didn't look that relevant either. They _were_ all properly named, though, which made "New Memo" (created one day ago) stick out like a sore thumb.

"PL, UG, star-emoji-crossed-swords-emoji, question mark ex two - er, that's probably 'times two'," I read off. "Send one member to each known target, and select one at random to escort the package."

"The package... is that Roxas? What do those abbreviations mean?"

"You won't be finding out, traitor," Lexaeus spat, emerging from a Corridor of Darkness.

"Wh- how'd you know we were here?"

"Did you think our alarms were for show? Or did you forget that we still have _ten_ loyal members?"

I held out my hand and - _oh, shit, Naminé!_ I couldn't summon my Keyblade and leave her suddenly defenseless!

Lexaeus drew his axe sword. "Since you've kindly relinquished your primary weapon, I will offer you this chance to surrender."

"What do you people even want from me? I'm at least 60% sure I have no particular significance - and having a Keyblade doesn't count anymore."

"Surrender and maybe you'll find out."

"Not happening," Axel interrupted, drawing his chakrams. "She's leaving, and you're not following her."

"Uh, Axel, are you implying -?"

"I can take him, easy."

"But can you _stop_ me so easily? I only need to bypass you, not defeat you."

"Well, you two have fun arguing about that, bye!" I said hastily, slipping into a Corridor of Darkness.

XXXXXXXXXX

I emerged in the Realm of Darkness, near-defenseless and surrounded by Heartless. Which I had known would happen, but I was mad about anyway. Thankfully, they weren't paying attention to me. Yet.

"Well, this whole situation is just _super_."


	14. 12: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

ATUHOR'S NOSE: So one of my favorited stories, which is also one of the inspirations for this story, just reached its ending after almost 10 years. (Most of which I wasn't there for, but never mind that little detail.) So go check out "Eclipse of the Heart", by FadedPhantom. Er, not right now, though, read this first!

* * *

Well. First things first. I counted to twenty, and Lexaeus didn't show up. So Axel was, in fact, holding him off. I had been concerned about the possibility that Lexaeus would just open his own Corridor of Darkness and slip past him, but apparently that was easier said than done.

The various Heartless in the area were still not paying attention to me. Presumably, my black cloak was hiding my heart's light successfully. But that could change any second.

We probably weren't going to find Roxas here, so I needed to call the others and tell them to withdraw, but neither my phone nor their communicators could transmit from here to there. I needed to get back to the Realm of Light.

Naminé had entered at the same place, only a few minutes ahead of me. Maybe I could catch up to her. "Naminé! Can you hear me?"

... No response. "Damn it." The problem was, I didn't actually know how to _navigate_ the Realm of Darkness. Luke had explained how to open Corridors of Darkness, over text, but I still didn't know how exit points in here corresponded to the Realm of Light. There hadn't been any time to learn this, and so I had been relying on someone else doing the navigating for every part of this plan.

Well, I did know _one_ exit point. I could leave the way I came, and go back into Zexion's lab. Maybe, if Lexaeus wasn't expecting this, I could get the drop on him and... do _something_. But without a weapon...?

XXXXXXXXXX

When I quietly slipped back in, I noticed that Axel and Lexaeus were fighting out in the hallway. Either Axel had deliberately drawn the fight away, anticipating my return, or else they had drifted there by coincidence. Or maybe they were fighting outside by mutual agreement not to trash Zexion's lab.

I quietly pulled out my phone and sent a text to Luke updating him on the situation and asking him to pass it on to the others in person when he arrived. This was the important part - there was nothing left for us to accomplish here, so we needed to withdraw safely.

Then, carefully, I tapped exactly five keys on Zexion's computer.

"Hey, Lexy!" I taunted. "I'm sitting here totally helpless, and kinda being a huge bitch! You gonna let that slide?"

"Yes," he said, continuing to fight Axel.

"... Well, that's not the response I expected."

"He's not gonna just fall for any trick you throw at him," Axel said, still holding his own handily. "He's taciturn, not a meathead! Use a trick that's actually good!"

"That was the only one I thought of...Axel, can you just lead him over here?"

Axel rolled his eyes, but with a few swift leaps he was next to me. Lexaeus... just turned to follow him, without moving from his position.

"Really? Are you just gonna be a contrarian?!"

"It seems obvious that if my enemy wants me to do something, I should _avoid_ doing that thing."

"He's got a point," Axel said. "You're not exactly subtle."

"Oh yeah? What if I'm double-bluffing and actually telling you what I _don't_ want you to do?"

"The possibility occured to me, but that pitiful attempt at a bluff proved it false."

"Damn it!" I stomped my foot in frustration. "Grrr... Well, if he's not leaving that spot, I guess we can just Corridor out!" A pause. He didn't seem to be stopping us. "Okay bye!" I Corridor'd out and pulled Axel with me.

"Hey, leggo, I can move on my own!"

"Pause." I held up one finger and backed away from where the Corridor was. "Wait for it."

Several seconds passed. "Uh, Tempest, wait for _what_?"

"Is he really letting us go, then? I was sure he'd charge after us immediately. Oh, now I'm all paranoid." I nervously fiddled with my coat sleeve. "Well, if he's really not following us, we should get back to the front door. Roxas isn't here, he's in one of those three places."

"And just what three places would those be?"

"Those are the three worlds where... I forget, do you know about Points of Shadow?"

"...I know _of_ them."

"Well, those three worlds are where we know one exists. The question marks probably refer to the two that we know of but haven't located. If they're specifically holding Roxas next to one, they might be relying on us having to hold back to avoid setting it off. The one in the Fifth City wasn't so bad, there was no-one and nothing there, but we might not get that lucky with the others. My question is, how do they _know_ about this? Xaldin indicated that they think the explosions were from _me_."

"Bluffing? Didn't tell him? Only figured it out after your fight? Who knows, kid. Don't get yourself sucked into this _yomi_ crap, it just gives you a headache."

I shrugged. "Well, if he's not following us, Lexaeus is... probably reinforcing the fight at the front door. So that's one more reason we should- "

"We should _what,_ now? _You_ are currently unarmed and near-helpless. _You_ should not be going _anywhere_ near a battle royale."

"I can still do magic - I can still _heal_! The potency will be shot without a Keyblade on hand, but I learned that stuff without one in the first place, I can keep them on their feet -"

"No. We're going somewhere safe. I know how long it takes to get to Castle Oblivion; Naminé won't be giving your Keyblade back before the battle's over. Especially if they're gonna retreat soon."

I gave Axel a death glare. But considering my options... "Ugh, fine. Where are you taking me?"

"Well, I'm of the opinion that we should head to Twilight Town."

"Twilight Town, the first place the Organization is gonna check when they realize Naminé is missing? That Twilight Town?"

"Yeah, _when they realize_. Right now, they're a bit busy - even if a relevant alarm has gotten to their attention, they won't actually chase after her yet. They don't think she can do anything to mess with them _other_ than being out of their grip, so recapturing her will be a low priority."

"Hmm," I hmmed. "And sticking around here -"

"In the Realm of Darkness? When one of us doesn't have a weapon? No chance in hell or double hell, Tempest. I'd push you into Naminé's prison cell first."

"Hm. ... Oh, whatever, I'm out of ideas. It was fast enough the first time, I'll text Luke again when we get out."

A brief run, and we exited into Twilight town, in the forest by the mansion. I sent a text updating Luke, and Axel looked around the area aggressively.

As I was putting my phone away, I spotted a sudden movement from by the mansion. "Huh? ... Is that a _Meow Wow_? What are Dream Eaters doing in the real world?"

"We could check it out. We've nothing better to do til someone gets back to you."

I shrugged. Without my Keyblade, I was pretty much stuck here until Axel said otherwise.

The mansion itself looked much the same as always. A bit more run-down, maybe? I couldn't really remember the mansion at all, aside from the one big room in front where I had farmed Nobodies a bunch to level up Sora's Final Form.

I spotted the Meow Wow again and chased after it.

"Will you slow down?" Axel shouted. "You're unarmed, don't just run off willy-nilly!"

Ignoring him, I followed the dogcat through the mansion, into the basement, through a maze of corridors, and eventually found myself in a disused computer room.

"Oh, hey, this place... so, what's here that a Dream Eater would want to lead me to -" As if in response, the Meow Wow made a Meow Wow noise and jumped into a crackling hole in space-time. Which somehow I hadn't noticed.

After some minutes, Axel caught up with me. "Jeez, kid, why can't you hold still for a minute? ... What's all this, then?"

"This is... I'm pretty sure this is where Ansem the Wise kept a virtual copy of Twilight Town to hold Roxas in, a while back."

"You know, I actually remember that. I have this weird feeling like I shouldn't be able to, but there it is. But what's _that_?" he added, pointing at the crackling hole in space-time.

"I... don't _know_. But from looking at it... it looks like the virtual Twilight Town is ... leaking? You can see into it through the hole, I know it's the same one because this computer is smashed in that world. ... If I could remember how to get into this computer, I could probably figure out more."

"Maybe. But you can't. So don't stress yourself out over it."

"But why are there Dream Eaters here? Do virtual worlds count as dreams? The virtual world had Heartless and Nobodies, which the dream worlds didn't, but I don't remember _why_ the dream worlds didn't have those things, so maybe it doesn't apply here."

"Okay, back up. I don't actually know what all this dream stuff is about. You gonna fill me in, or is that need-to-know info?"

"Uh, hm. Good question. I don't remember why those worlds were dreaming, or if any more are, or..."

Suddenly, a chime from my communicator. "Sora here - Luke just showed up and the moment he did the three of them just warped out suddenly! Tempest, where are you?"

"I'm in Twilight Town with Axel, and I'm currently weaponless - did anyone relay that?"

"Riku here - why did Axel take you to Twilight Town? What happened to your Keyblade?"

"I lent it to Naminé - long story - and Axel is of the opinion that this means I should stay away from combat. Even though I'm still a perfectly competent _healer_ without my Keyblade on hand..." I grumped.

"We're coming to get you. We don't know where they went, if they're after you, or -"

And with a crackle of static, Riku was cut off.

"Um. That can't be good."

"Well, not for you," said Luxord, stepping out of a Corridor of Darkness. "But I was sure I would find Naminé here - not you two."

"I _thought_ you said recovering her was going to be a _low priority_."

"Oh, he wasn't wrong. I'm here on my own initiative. A little gamble, you could s-" But suddenly Luxord was cut off by a chakram to the face. Or more precisely, to the place his face would have been if he hadn't dodged just in time.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned a wall of cards, cutting me off and trapping me in the corner. Well, he _did_ just hear me declare that I could usefully heal without a Keyblade, didn't he?

I frowned loudly at this development. _Theoretically_ , I could slip out through a Corridor of Darkness, except of course that I still didn't know how to navigate those. If my sense of direction had been slightly better, I could at least retrace my steps back to The World That Never Was - but if I could do that, I could have done the same to move from Zexion's lab back to Vexen's lab, or the front door, instead of relying on Axel - and in any case it would have been a terrible idea.

While Axel and Luxord clashed, I kicked and elbowed at the cards, hoping to at least knock them about enough that I had line of sight again and could heal Axel. But to no avail - a single week of training with Yuffie, plus a handful of fights, simply hadn't been enough to change the fact that I wasn't all that physically strong. With whatever magic Luxord used to summon these cards, I wasn't sure I'd have been able to budge them even _with_ a Keyblade in hand enhancing my strength.

Maybe I could burn them. I hadn't ever really focused on straight-up damage-dealing magic, but I had practiced them for completeness's sake and they weren't _that_ different from the healing and tactical spells I favored.

I prepared to channel elemental fire, but was interrupted by Axel's flaming chakram tearing through the cards like so much tissue paper.

"Focus, Tempest!" Axel admonished. "He's keeping us apart for a reason!"

"Well, I could hardly beat you in a _fair_ challenge!" Luxord responded. He summoned more cards and flicked them at me flechette-style.

I quickly dodged most of them, but one managed to slice through my shoulder. "Ffffff _frick_ -" I had forgotten that a Keyblade enhances _defense_ , too. That had hurt way more than I was expecting it to.

"Don't drop your guard!" Axel said, deflecting a die just before it hit me - and, unfortunately, causing it to bounce around wildly, making it even more of a danger.

"Why are we fighting _here_? This place is tiny!" From sheer frustration, I tried simply stomping on Luxord's foot. Amazingly, this _worked_ \- he didn't realize what was happening until too late, and while he was staggering from pain Axel blasted him in the face with two flaming chakrams.

This was apparently enough to convince Luxord to flee, as he quickly opened a Corridor of Darkness and exited.

"... Wait what? That's it?"

"Don't look the gift horse in the mouth, Tempest. Keeping him away from you was a real pain, even if I could have just wiped the floor with him in a straight fight."

I sighed. "Whatever. I can't figure out what's going on here and -" Suddenly, my communicator chimed. "Oh, shit, right!" I answered it. "Tempest here -"

"Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm fine, Riku. I think the Organization has some way of jamming these things, because Luxord showed up suddenly after I got cut off. But he apparently can't fight in enclosed spaces like this, so he ran off after taking a few hits."

"Never slows down... Well, we're at Twilight Town. Where _specifically_ are you two right now?"

"The mansion, down in the old computer lab. There's this weird crackling portal that I _think_ leads to Ansem's old copy of Twilight Town. Oh, do any of you remember how to get in? I think with access to the system, I could figure out what that is."

"Oh yeah, I remember that," Sora said. "The password is 'sea-salt ice cream'. But Riku, didn't we copy all the data way back when?"

"Well, we copied what was there _at the time_. If someone else has been using the thing, there could be more content."

"Hmm. Well, the old password still works, so while you make your way here, I'm going to fiddle around and see if I can find anything relevant." I set down the communicator and started to familiarize myself with the operating system.

* * *

Hm, I was sure I'd get from here to there in only _one_ chapter, but there's definitely at least one more chapter in between, and I don't really feel _closer_. Oh well, that's what happens when you improvise all the time.

... Oh, shoot, I totally set up a thing and then never launched it. I suppose that _also_ happens when you improvise all the time.


	15. 13: Several New Old Enemies

ATUHOR'S NOSE: I don't have anything to put here, the document just looks wrong without a note at the top.

* * *

Tap tap tap. Click. Maybe it was just my imagination, but this computer seemed unusually noisy. I'd had about fifteen minutes of this and it was already almost more than I could take.

"Find anything interesting?" Riku asked as he arrived, Sora and Kairi trailing just behind.

"This system is an even mixture of fascinating and infuriating. I've figured out _some_ of what's going on here, at least." I swiveled the chair around to face the others. "Obvious things first. _That_ -" I pointed at the crackling space-time hole, "- is not supposed to be there. In fact, as far as the computer is concerned, it isn't - the only entrance it knows about is the proper one, and that's been closed for months.

"Now, computers can't 'figure out' things just by observing, the way people can. They need to be programmed in advance with an idea of what to look for. Which makes me wonder who knew to program this thing to look specifically for Dream Eaters - and how. But I don't have any clues on that, yet.

"As for what the computer found..." I turned back for a moment to tap a few keys, putting a line graph on the monitor. "It seems that Dream Eater activity in the virtual Twilight Town started about four months ago, shortly after the entrance was closed actually, but it was fairly low-key for a while. It was about _two_ months afterward when activity massively increased, growing exponentially, until here, where it seems to hit a capacity limit. It's tapered off after that, but never gone back down."

The four of them nodded at this exposition. "All right," Kairi said, "but what does all that _mean_?"

I closed my eyes thoughtfully for a moment. "I have absolutely no idea."

Everyone facefaulted.

"Tempest, I was under the impression you had something _important_ to tell us!" Riku said.

"What? I never claimed that. _You_ asked _me_ what I'd found - and I've been looking for like fifteen minutes, all I've seen is a few status readouts."

"So... I guess the virtual Twilight Town counts as a sleeping world, now?" Sora mused.

"That was my thought, yeah," I said. "Problem is... I again have no idea what that implies."

"Hey, can you use that computer to check for Heartless and Nobody activity?" Kairi asked.

"Probably! Let's find out." I turned back to the computer and clicked around in the graph's context menus, hoping to find something relevant. Thankfully, it didn't take long, and soon the graph had three more lines.

"It looks like Heartless and Nobody activity has been slowly decaying since the door closed. The ones that were there weren't driven out by that, I suppose, but they've been slowly dying, to each other and the Dream Eaters. But this 'other' line... it follows the Dream Eater trend, a few days behind, but what _is_ an 'other'?" I clicked on it and after a few tries, I managed to find an option to show examples of "other" activity.

The screen display changed to a picture of what was unmistakably a Tank Toppler.

"What the _hell_?!" I exclaimed - and, unexpectedly, so did Sora.

I knew why I was having this reaction - I recognized it as an Unversed. But Sora shouldn't have ever seen one in his life... Riku and Axel also shouldn't have, and were reacting just as I'd expect - with mild concern and curiosity, but apparently under the impression it was just an unfamiliar type of Heartless.

Why would Sora...? On closer inspection, he seemed to be not just surprised, but _scared_. As he noticed my notice, he shook it off. "I don't actually know what that _is_ ," he said, "but I get a real nasty feeling from it."

If I recalled correctly, Kairi _had_ seen Unversed, though she was a very young child at the time and might not remember very well. Certainly she hadn't had them explained to her in complete detail. But she did seem to remember enough to recognize the Tank Toppler as cut from the same cloth. "So, if that's not a Heartless, Nobody, or Dream Eater, what is it?"

I couldn't explain the _real_ reason I knew, but I might be able to tell a convincing lie... "While I was studying, I read about monsters called 'Unversed', which supposedly derived from negative emotions. But they completely stopped appearing about a month after they started - if this is one of them, something has gone really strange."

The screen flicked through a slideshow of "other" activity, showing various Unversed in various places, from Floods, Scrappers, and Bruisers to those I recognized but couldn't recall the names to a few I was pretty sure I'd never even seen.

"If they're supposed to be gone, why are they _back_?" Sora asked, a distressed tone in his voice.

"... I don't have a good hypothesis," I admitted. A half truth - it seemed obvious that this was the result of Vanitas somehow returning. The thing I didn't have a good hypothesis for was how _that_ had happened. "This was in Aqua's time, though. Maybe she knows something. Probably we shouldn't discuss this over the communicators, though. I'm starting to think they might not be secure."

"They're not at all," Kairi said. "I actually meant to tell you earlier, but it slipped my mind til just now - if someone knows how to tune them, they can just sweep the entire spectrum and listen in on whatever they hear."

"Oh. _Oh._ Oh _jeez_ , did they _know_? They could totally have heard Naminé telling Yen Sid she was borrowing my Keyblade. ... Oh, _double crap_ , they could have heard the entire attack plan from the beginning!"

"Relax, Tempest," Riku said. "These things are in common use. Finding ours would be a needle in a haystack, especially if we didn't happen to be speaking at the time. They _might_ , however, have noticed the new frequency on Axel's. I had kinda assumed that was another part of your plan."

"They haven't acted on anything we've said over this line," Sora said. "So probably they aren't listening."

" _Or_ they think they'll get more value by keeping their advantage quiet and acting on it later!" I retorted. " _Or_ or, maybe they've just been subtle, so you would _think_ they weren't listening!"

Riku frowned. "That's... possible. I suppose it couldn't _hurt_ if our communications were secure."

"Yeah, but _can_ we get secure communications?" Kairi asked. "Keeping in mind that it has to work across worlds, which narrows our options pretty heavily - because naturally, most worlds haven't invented any signal that can cross a barrier they didn't even know about."

The three of them pondered this for a moment.

"Ugh, I think this is exactly why we were using those," Sora griped.

I pinched the bridge of my nose in exasperation. "If I knew more... _any_ cryptography, I might be able to invent a secure system... I guess, for now, let's just not say sensitive info over these things. Oh, and tell Aqua they're not secure - I have a feeling these were invented after her time."

"They're pretty new, yeah," Kairi said. "I think they were invented like, two months ago. That's another reason we aren't overly cautious about eavesdroppers - there's only been that long for people to come up with ideas like that."

I nodded. "That's fair... It must be very popular, to be in such wide use after only two months. And inexpensive, too."

"I don't know how expensive it is to _make_ ," Riku said, "but the manufacturers are giving them out for free for the first few months. A promotional thing."

"I see..." I vaguely remembered that things went bad back home, when the first big telephone company was the _only_ telephone company, due to tactics like this. I couldn't recall the details, because it was before my time - but it could wait anyway. Breaking up a potential monopoly wasn't even in my top 10 most important tasks right now.

Our communicators all chimed suddenly. I picked mine up, but put a finger to my lips and pointed to Riku. The three of us listened in as he pretended to be the only one on the line.

"Riku here - what's up?"

"Naminé has a message for Tempest - she is safe and no longer needs to borrow her Keyblade."

I nodded, and carefully set down my communicator so it wouldn't pick up my speech. "Tell him to relay exactly this - 'Tempest receives your message, and as you can see, she has chosen not to retrieve her Keyblade. She trusts that you know why this is.' Oh, and if he asks why I'm relaying this through you instead of using my own communicator -" Actually, that did seem a completely unnecessary step, now that I said it out loud, but I was already doing it so I'd just roll with it. "- just tell him I'll explain later."

I counted the seconds on my fingers as Riku relayed my message, up until he reached 'as you can see'. Then, when Yen Sid acknowledged this and disconnected, I counted the seconds back down - and when I reached zero, I recalled my Keyblade.

At an eyebrow raise from Kairi, I explained - "Hopefully, Naminé should see my Keyblade vanish from her hands the moment Yen Sid says 'as you can see'. The finger-counting was my attempt to time it - a bit crude, but I'm hoping the multiverse's sense of drama will compensate."

"Okay, but what's the point of lying to her if she can immediately see the truth?"

"Well, I'm hoping that by calling my Keyblade back right then, she'll get the message that I'm bluffing specifically to trick eavesdroppers. Because I'm like 98% sure at this point that the Organization is listening in on that communication line, if not the main line as well. And the timing of retrieving my Keyblade was the only communication method I had with her that I was confident wasn't being listened in on."

I concluded my explanation while clipping Voice of the Well back onto its chain. "The upshot of all this, then, is that Naminé, as well as everyone in my presence or hers, knows full well that I'm armed once again. But the Organization believes I'm still helpless. So, as far as they know, now is the time to strike, while I'm weak - but because we're expecting that, now should be the perfect time for us to ambush them."

"Yeah, but they'll be expecting the four of us to be defending you," Sora said, "- or at least one person, if they're only listening on the extra line. So they'll send enough to handle a big fight."

"And they know you're hanging out with me," Axel added, "- I'm not sure if they know you _can't_ leave on your own, but it doesn't matter because they know I could be sticking around, so they'll assume I probably did."

"I see. So having me in the fight when they were expecting only _slightly_ less resistance won't be that big an advantage. If only we could convince them that I'd be entirely alone, too... We can't just ask Yen Sid to relay that to Naminé - it'll make it too obvious that we're feeding them. Hmm..."

XXXXXXXXXX

Roughly one hour had passed. The others had left, and I had remained in the computer lab. Our assumption that they wouldn't want to fight in here again had held, at least, and the time had come to spring the trap.

With no safe way of communicating, we had concluded that I would have to fight my attacker alone. So, warily, I exited the manor.

As expected, the moment I was in the open, I was ambushed. A flurry of cards filled my field of vision, and when the cloud cleared, I was on a platform hovering in a void, alone with Luxord.

"I knew it. You weren't running away at all. You were just making a brief strategic withdrawal."

"You were right - that lab was far too cramped for a proper challenge. Here, I can subdue you without trouble. But if you knew my intentions, then - placing yourself in the open, alone and unarmed? A reckless gamble on your part."

"Maybe. But I think it'll pay off." As he summoned cards, I thrust my hand forward to catch and redirect the tendrils of magic, warping his would-be weapons into a timing game.

"A challenge, is it? You're betting that you can defeat me through this method alone, thereby not needing your weapon. Your margin for error is slim... Very well, I accept."

"Oh, good, I wasn't looking forward to plan B," I said, swiftly drawing the winning card, and a sizable chunk of Luxord's Time with it. While he was stunned, I followed up with two quick blasts of Stone, then jumped back to put some distance between us.

This turned out to be quite a good thing, because I only just barely dodged his card-flechettes - a little closer and I wouldn't have moved fast enough. (Suppressing the urge to _block_ them was playing havoc with my reaction time, but I didn't want to tip my hand just yet.)

From the looks of it, I'd have to wait him out, until he expended his deck and I could hijack his summoning again. This only took a few volleys, but annoyingly, the very last card managed to graze my left arm again, slicing through my shirt and drawing blood.

"Ow! Damn it, Luxord, I _like_ this shirt! If clothing-repair magic wasn't so easy, I'd be seriously pissed right now!"

He rolled his eyes. "You do know that if you only concede, I'll have no further reason to damage your clothing."

"Maybe if you explained why you guys are after me, I'd consider it."

"You make demands of me? I'm the one holding all the cards."

"I know, I'm audacious that way."

He rolled his eyes again. "Very well. We'll play out the game." He summoned more cards, and I duly hijacked the magic, beginning the dice game.

Unfortunately, this time my timing was off, and I picked a losing face, getting transformed into a die for my troubles. I bounced past Luxord, hoping to burn through the curse's magic and disorient him at the same time.

And the moment I landed, I heard a sound that could only be someone smashing through the arena's barrier. While the hole repaired itself swiftly, the interloper was already inside.

"Luke?!" I didn't exclaim, because I was still too cube-shaped to speak at all. But I thought it real loud.

"I'm not sure why you thought you could take him alone and unarmed, but that doesn't mean you _should_."

"Oh my, a new challenger approaches?" Luxord quickly summoned more cards. "I'll have to take the gloves off, then."

Meanwhile, I had finally managed to shake off the curse and return to my normal shape. "Uh, hey there Luke. Look, not that I don't appreciate the _sentiment_ , but I was actually holding my own just fine, there..."

"Really? You looked like you were... _in a bad shape_."

"...? Oh, ha ha, a polymorph pun. Very clever."

"Thank you. But hey - if you were expecting to probably win, now we'll definitely win!"

"Fair enough. Especially considering this -" I said, and summoned Voice of the Well.

"My word - an ace up your sleeve."

"Two, really. Even _I_ wasn't expecting Luke to show up. Though, in retrospect, probably I should have..."

"Am I to take it that Naminé is safely ensconced within the walls of Castle Oblivion, then?"

"Take what you like," Luke said, "but we won't _give_ you anything but a beatdown."

Luxord looked between us, considering the situation. After but a moment, with a single motion, he tossed two handfuls of card-flechettes at us and took a Corridor of Darkness out. "I fold. Goodbye."

As the arena faded and we returned to the space in front of the manor, I blinked a few times. "Wh- _why_ , always, with the running away?! Why do you - aaarrrggghhh!"

"Relax, Tempest," Luke said. "We won, right?"

"I _guess_? But we accomplished nothing and -"

"Don't forget, this was a whole mission, not just a fight with Luxord. We got Roxas and Naminé out, right?"

"Mmm... One of them. And we have it narrowed down as to where Roxas could be. But how does the Organization know about Points of Shadow?"

"Wait what."

"Yeah, they're holding him at one of the three Points we know about. ... Which is oddly convenient. Why are the three we know about the same three they know about?"

"I mean, there's only... five left? If they found three at random, the odds are..." Luke counted on his fingers. "One in ten. That's low, but not _that_ low. One in ten coincidences happen all the time."

"Is that the right way to calculate the odds of this? If we assume they have a 50/50 chance of knowing each one, the odds of knowing exactly these three are one in -" I counted on my fingers, _two four eight sixteen,_ "- thirty-two. That's way less. And how do they know there are five left to begin with?"

"Ooh. That's a good ques- hey, wait a minute! If Luxord reports that Naminé's at Castle Oblivion, they're gonna head straight there to recapture her!"

"Frick! You're right, we gotta _move_!" I immediately started summoning my Keyblade Glider, while Luke opened the path to the Lanes Between.

"Where are the others?"

"In Sora's Gummi Ship," I responded. "Can I get into the Gummi routes on this thing?"

"I think so, theoretically, but with Gummi Heartless to think about, I wouldn't -"

"I just need to intercept their ship and tell them what's going on. I'll meet you at the Castle!"

"Tempest, -!" But I didn't hear whatever he said, because I was already gone.

* * *

... Truth be told, I realized this about as abruptly as Luke did. So there's at least one more chapter I wasn't expecting between here and there. I'm just gonna stop trying to predict myself. I'll get there Soon™, Probably™. (edit from the future: NOPE LOL)

Anyway, obligatory reminder that all fanfic writers love reviews, and also obligatory encouragement of wild speculation. (I... don't know if _all_ fanfic writers love wild speculation? But I know I do.)


	16. 14: Secrets

ATUHOR'S NOSE: I always want to apologize for my chapters being late, but then I check the publication dates and they're basically perfectly on my normal pace. I don't even know.

Further notes at the end, as usual.

* * *

I really need to learn to start listening when people tell me things.

I had been in the Gummi Lanes not two minutes when the first Gummi Heartless spotted me.

I had no weapon, no armor, no nothing but the clothes on my back and the glider beneath my feet. So I was an appetizing target indeed.

Two more minutes and the swarm chasing me had grown beyond my ability to count them. Admittedly, fleeing swarms of pursuers through outer space on a barely-existent vehicle - one I had to _balance_ on, no less! - would not be conducive to _anyone's_ arithmetic skills.

Still, there were certainly a lot of them and I was deeply regretting this decision.

Thankfully, I had spotted Sora's Gummi Ship almost the moment I took off. So I beelined in that direction as quickly as I could, taking only small detours around various asteroids in an attempt to slow down the swarm of enemies after me.

Oh, and did I mention they all had _freakin laser beams_?!

I was not having a good time. Why did I think this was a good idea, again? Oh, right.

Thankfully, someone on the ship noticed my approach well before I was in weapons range. As soon the chasing Heartless crossed the invisible line, the ship started blasting them with every weapon they had - and I spotted a Corridor of Darkness opening up just next to it.

With one last burst of speed, I dashed into the portal, and despite immediately putting on the brakes I swiftly crashed into the other wall. Or, more precisely, into the pile of mattresses and pillows that someone had thoughtfully piled in front of said wall.

"Ow," I mumbled.

"Y'know," Riku mused as he returned to the ship, closing the dark portal behind him, "In retrospect, I could have just had the _one_ portal, let you slow down in the Dark Realm, and _then_ let you onto the ship. I'll try to think faster next time."

"It's fine, thanks anyway - oh, but do keep that two-portal trick in mind in case we ever find a scenario where it actually is useful."

"And now," Kairi added, "there's a bit of an obvious q-"

" _Holy crap Tempest what were you thinking trying to pilot a Keyblade Glider through the Gummi Lanes, me and Riku did that once and we almost died, it's super dangerous!_ " Sora shouted.

"... Yeah, basically that," Kairi finished.

"Well, you see, what I was thinking was, 'oh shit, they're gonna go after Naminé like right now, we gotta go fast, why did I think Castle Oblivion was the best place to send her'."

Riku blinked. "Oh. I see. So you needed to tell us there was a change of plan as quickly as possible -"

"- and without using the communicators we had _just_ established were insecure," Kairi finished, nodding.

"... What's Castle Oblivion, again?" Sora asked.

"Wait what." I retraced the timeline in my head. "... Oh. Oh jeez. You actually don't know."

"I... was _going_ to tell him," Riku said. "But somehow I never remembered to. We had a few months to ourselves after beating Xemnas and I... just never got around to it."

"Hey, we were focusing on other things then, remember?" Kairi said.

"That's true," Riku and Sora both said simultaneously, smiling slightly.

I let them have a moment and then cleared my throat. "Well, uh, I think Riku knows the most about it," I lied - actually, _was_ it a lie? I barely remembered _Chain of Memories_ and Riku had spent a year in the castle helping Sora regain his memories. He might legitimately know more than I do.

I had gotten distracted by this thought and forgot to finish my sentence, but luckily it just looked like I was giving Riku an opening to provide the explanation, which he dutifully took. "It's a castle that the Organization was looking into. They know some stuff about it, but it's not really _theirs_ , and there's a lot that's unknown to them. Naminé's probably safer than you think, Tempest - she has access to chambers that the Organization can't get into. Sora, remember when you lost a year, just after defeating Xehanort's Heartless? That secret chamber is where you spent most of it, while Naminé fixed your memories."

"Oh! Is that what we're supposed to thank her for?" Sora asked. Riku nodded.

"Hmm, Riku, how do you know the Organization can't get into these chambers?"

"Because they only work for Naminé. She already knew they wouldn't work for the Organization - they had thrown a fit about that when they realized - but when she tried showing me early on how to operate them, the mechanisms wouldn't do anything unless she pushed the buttons personally."

"Huh."

"Once we figured that out, we relocated to an area where most of the doorways worked for both of us, but there were nearby rooms that only worked for her that she could quickly retreat into - we never ended up actually needing to do that, but y'know. Oh, and for whatever reason, a lot of mechanisms wouldn't work for either of us."

I pondered this for a bit. I recalled that Castle Oblivion was really the everted form of the Land of Departure, and it was supposed to be incomprehensible to anyone but the one who had everted it - Aqua, in this case. But it seemed that the weakest and least-secure of the mechanisms were mistaking Naminé for her - no, the _second_ -least-secure, because the actual least-secure mechanisms were the ones letting anyone through. If there were varying levels of security, then...

"This is just a hypothesis, so I'm not a hundred percent on it, but... let's say I'd bet a hundred munny that some of the mechanisms Naminé couldn't use will respond to Kairi. But not all of them, and definitely not the most important - we'll still need to bring in Aqua for those."

Riku frowned very loudly. "What on earth gives you the idea that _Kairi_ has anything to do with it?"

"... You mean _aside_ from the fact that Naminé is her Nobody?"

"Yeah, and how do you know _that_? None of us have mentioned it to you at any point."

"Er - the Organization let it slip when I was with them."

"Didn't Axel say they had explicit orders not to even mention her _existence_ in your presence? You said you eavesdropped on them, but what reason would they even have to mention something this specific?"

"Wh- Riku, why are you being like this suddenly?"

"You show up suddenly knowing stuff you have no reason to, you insinuate yourself into our circles, and this Points of Shadow thing? You say you're trying to seal them, but you're 2 for 2 on blowing them up. Why should -"

Riku stopped suddenly as Kairi put her hand on his arm. "Tempest," she said, "what is it you're hiding?"

"That's... a rather broad question..."

She shook her head. "Look, I've noticed that you're not a particularly open person. You don't volunteer information about yourself, but you'll respond freely when someone prompts you. I get that that's different from deliberately hiding - but you _are_ deliberately hiding something, and it's making it hard to trust you."

Well. When she put it like that, there's only one thing they could be thinking of. The problem, though... "I'm... well, the thing you're referring to... I keep quiet about it because I don't understand it myself. So I can't know if it's safe to tell people."

Sora looked between the three of us. "So, wait, is this about that 'unfair advantage when it comes to knowing things' you mentioned earlier?"

I blinked. I had totally forgotten, but that was something I had said not all that long ago. "Yes. It's exactly that thing."

Sora nodded. "Riku, I think we can trust her."

"Wait, just like that? I- I mean, not that I'm saying Sora's wrong! But... how does _that_ tell you you can trust me?"

Sora grinned. "Let's say I have an unfair advantage of my own."

"What? Hey, what kind of unfair advantage can you have over me? My unfair advantage doesn't say anything about that!"

"Can't tell ya, it's a secret!"

"Are you trolling me? Sora, is this actually a secret or are you trolling me right now?"

Riku facepalmed as Sora continued teasing me. Conveniently, the autopilot chimed right about then. "Well, I'm gonna land the ship while you two mess around. Or actually, you should probably strap yourselves in - given that this is unfamiliar territory and _kind of_ controlled by the Organization, it might be a bumpy landing."

XXXXXXXXXX

Conveniently, we managed to find a landing point several floors up. Riku said that Naminé's hiding place was on the top floor, so skipping more than half the climb was nice.

Also convenient was that Riku had held on to all his room cards from his first time through, as well as Sora's - while the memory effects of the castle had been faked by Naminé, the card mechanics really were part of the location. In fact, the moment I set foot in the first room, I felt a deck of attack cards appear in my pocket.

But I didn't get a chance to use them, as Riku managed to construct a path out of nothing but Calm Bounty and Moment's Respite rooms. At least I got enough cards to cast all my spells, if need be.

Thankfully, that wasn't going to happen today. We reached Naminé's hiding place without any trouble.

"Time to go somewhere safer?" she guessed.

"Mm-hmm..." I stared at the blank Replica in the memory pod. _Why did I want this? There's a reason... an important one..._

"Do you remember yet?" Naminé asked.

"Not yet..." I admitted.

"Is this related to the thing you can't remember that you got that Violant ink for?" Riku asked.

"... I think it is, actually. Hmm. What do a blank Replica and 'not Sora' have in common...?"

"It might help to bring Roxas here, after you rescue him," Naminé offered. "When... the other Naminé was reconstructing Sora's memories, she encountered problems with... the other Roxas. If there's a connection..."

"And by 'here' you mean 'wherever you end up moving to', right? On account of how Castle Oblivion is the second place the Organization is going to look for you?"

"Okay, obvious question," Kairi interrupted. " _Where_ is Naminé moving to?"

We pondered that for a moment.

"My first thought is Yen Sid's tower," I said, "but after Xaldin's attack maybe that's less safe than I believed."

"No, I think it'll work," Kairi said. "Between me, Lea, Master Aqua, and Master Yen Sid, I think we can keep things under control."

"Didn't Xaldin blow up like half the tower?" Sora asked.

"Yes - we think he found a loophole in the wards. They're meant to defend against those who intend harm against the tower's occupants, but Xaldin only attacked the tower _itself_ \- until you showed up, Tempest, and you never qualified as an occupant - and he did it for the purpose of _distracting_ us. So the wards didn't work on him. Master Yen Sid closed that loophole, though, so something like that won't work again."

"I see. I guess that loophole wouldn't have been useful to them anyway, if what they want is to capture Naminé. What do you think?" I said, turning to the girl in question.

She closed her eyes in thought for a few moments. "Well, Yen Sid's tower does seem like a good place to be, especially in light of..." She held out her hand and summoned a Kingdom Key. "... this new development."

"Whoa! Since when have you had that?" I exclaimed. (Sora, Riku, and Kairi were expressing similar sentiments.)

"Not long. Something about holding your Keyblade, Tempest... I realized when you called yours back that I still had one."

"Did lending you my Keyblade count as a Bequeathing? Or did you already have a Keyblade and somehow that awakened it?"

"Honestly, considering my unusual circumstances, it could be both. All I know is... for the first time, I really feel like the multiverse wants me to be my own person."

* * *

To the anon from a while back - I don't know if you're even still following this, but it suddenly occurred to me that "The Havoc Side of the Force", a Star Wars/Harry Potter crossover by Tsu Doh Nimh, is probably right up your alley. Obviously Harry isn't technically a self-insert (though he's divergent enough that one could consider him an OC stand-in), but Star Wars technically _is_ Disney now. It's in my favorites if you want to check it out.

Obligatory reminder that all fanfic writers love reviews, and... well, I _imagine_ most fanfic writers love wild speculation, but I still haven't confirmed that. But anyway, I definitely do.


	17. 15: Perfectly Reasonable Precaution?

ATUHOR'S NOSE: ... The Doylist reason, of course, being that it didn't occur to _the author_ until just this chapter, either. ("What _are_ you talking about, Sylvi wingedcatgirl?") Eh, you'll see. Anyway, this chapter is on the shorter side. I'm sure I'm going somewhere with this.

... Also, why am I always publishing at like midnight or something? Oh right I have insomnia.

* * *

While the four of them were discussing logistics, I stared at the blank Replica some more. On an impulse, I pulled out the Violant inkpot, dipped in my first finger, and traced the equation _n = i_ on the Replica's chest. (My first impulse had been a slightly more standard variable-naming convention, until I suddenly remembered about the Recusant's Sigil and decided to avoid that letter.) Sora raised an eyebrow at this odd action. I shrugged.

Conveniently, it turned out that Naminé could shrink her memory pods at will for easy transport. So bringing the blank Replica to Yen Sid's tower wasn't at all difficult. (And now I knew how she got Sora from Castle Oblivion to Twilight Town way back when, which somehow I hadn't thought to question until just now.)

I offered to teach her how to summon her Keyblade Glider, but she pointed out that the Gummi Ship held five quite easily and in any case it would probably be less effective to teach her in a place where the Organization might kick in the door any moment.

I had to admit the logic was faultless, so the five of us boarded the Gummi Ship. It was at about this point that I finally remembered to check my phone and perhaps unsurprisingly there were like twenty angry messages from Luke yelling at me for suddenly going silent after doing something super reckless. I quickly sent him one back assuring him that I was fine (and apologizing for accidentally not answering earlier) and telling him that we were all heading back to the tower now.

The trip back to the tower was uneventful enough, as Sora's ship was still armed to the teeth and blasted through Gummi Heartless like tissue paper. After we landed, we split off to our own rooms to shower - well, strictly speaking only Kairi had her _own_ room at the moment, but there were enough rooms that we could all take one without a problem.

We, uh, kind of desperately needed showers after engaging in combat all day.

Afterward we cooked a meal together (which was a bit surreal, but nice in its way) and had just sat down to eat when Riku brought up the inevitable topic.

"So, Tempest. What's the deal with... your 'unfair advantage'?"

I shrugged. "I'd honestly love to e- er, make that _infodump_ on the subject, but I still don't barely grasp what's going on with it myself. Actually, I was hoping to look into that while we were here." I considered what sort of books I could get from the library that could possibly show how my world had... prophetic video games, of all things.

"Oh, I just remembered something. Master Yen Sid, you didn't seem at all surprised that I knew stuff I shouldn't. At the time I just accepted it as you being one of the local mysterious wizards, but, thinking about it - were you e- did you know this would happen?"

The old master nodded. "I am not a specialist on the subject, but I had been warned to watch your world. For when it fell to darkness, it would be a sign of great peril to come - and the survivors of your world would necessarily be a great source of knowledge. I never did find time to investigate the reason why this would be - if you wish to know more, you'll need to speak to the one who told me. My apprentice, King Mickey. As it happens, he shall be here tomorrow."

OOOOOOOOOO

After this we didn't have much more to say about that subject so we just discussed random whatever for a while. Aqua seemed to open up a bit more after I admitted that I was in fact in possession of unearned knowledge - that, or she was finally recovering from a decade in the Realm of Darkness. Or both?

She recounted the time when she defended Kairi from Unversed in Radiant Garden, and Kairi mentioned that she _probably_ accidentally acquired Keyblade privileges at this point. Riku brought up the time much later that he lent Kairi his Keyblade, apparently having been of the opinion that that was when Kairi had acquired a Keyblade.

Naminé pointed out that it could well have been the combination of the two - pointing out the obvious parallel to the Keyblade that she had discovered recently. This surprised several people as the fact that Naminé had come into possession of a Keyblade had somehow not come up yet. This occupied the dinner conversation for the rest of the meal.

After everything was cleared away, I noticed (rather belatedly) that Lea had been absent the whole time, and only his Nobody had been present. Thinking about it, this did seem the only way for the two not to meet, but it also felt completely unfair to Lea. I mentioned this (quietly) to Yen Sid and he acknowledged this and said that he had planned to send a broom servant to Lea with food for him but suggested that it might be better for an actual person to do that, so Lea would have a chance to socialize.

So of course I volunteered. Sure, it seemed like Yen Sid was railroading me into it, but it had been my idea to keep his presence secret from Lea's Nobody so really the situation was my doing.

Knock knock. "Room service."

"Eh? Oh, I guess it is that time..."

Lea answered the door with his old Organization hood up (just in case) and I quickly slipped in and locked the door behind me. Lea ate his food while I brought him up to speed on everything, and after that I stuck around a bit so we could just chat.

"... but thinking about it, that means Keyblades can spread about as easily as viruses, can't they?" Lea said.

"Pretty much, yeah. According to Aqua, there was a war long ago, consisting entirely of Keyblade wielders, and the blades they left behind stretch farther than the eye can see."

"Damn. That's heavy."

"Mm-hmm... You know, I still don't have any clue what to do about you and A- your Nobody."

"It's a weird situation. Sora and Ro-"

"Stop!" I interrupted suddenly. "Sorry. I've been feeling watched lately, so can we avoid, er... the letter our enemy's name begins with?"

Lea took a moment to figure out what that meant. "Oh! Okay, yeah, fair enough. But like I was saying, Sora and... Sora's Nobody, running around at the same time was weird enough, and there was a logical e- I mean, a logical _reason_ behind that. It'd be nice if a solution would just drop out of the sky."

I snrk'd. "Unlikely. But I'll keep an eye out." I checked the time - it was getting late. "I should probably be getting to sleep soon."

Lea nodded. "Don't let me keep ya. I know you have bad sleep habits as it is."

I stood up and opened the door to leave, only to spot Lea's Nobody listening at the door. "Uh. Oops?" he said lamely - and then he spotted Lea. "Wait. _What_?"

Acting on instinct, I grabbed the Nobody by the wrist and yanked him into the room, slamming the door behind us.

The three of us looked back and forth between each other - the Nobody in confusion, Lea and I in panic.

Lea spoke up first. "I take it you didn't have a plan for this scenario?"

"I didn't have a plan for _any_ scenario," I said. "That's sort of how we got into this."

" _Why_ are there two of me?" the Nobody asked.

"I can answer that, actually. Do you remember... the time you died to save Sora?"

"What? I'm not dead, that can't have... can't... but. It did happen. I remember it. What the hell? Why do I remember something that can't possibly have happened?!"

"Calm," I said, accompanied with the obligatory 'calm down' gesture. "When a Nobody dies, their original self tends to come back." I paused. "Wild hypothesis: you might be able to get your heart back right now."

"What, really?" The Nobody walked over to his original. "Are you suggesting I can just," he lightly poked his original in the face and there was a sudden blinding flash of light.

When my eyes recovered, I could only see one firebrand.

"... Huh." he said.

"I, uh... I would have bet millions of munny that that would have required way more effort than that."

The firebrand blinked - and now I'm using an epithet not to avoid writing a Recusant's Sigil, but because I legitimately don't know which person I'm looking at.

"This is kinda trippy," he said. "It was weird enough when I went from being a Somebody to a Nobody and back again, but that only ever involved one of me _at a time_. Now I have this whole stretch of like a month and a half where I have two simultaneous memories."

"... Well, I can't say this is a phenomenon I'm familiar with, but, intuitively, I suspect it's probably better not to think too hard about it."

A knock at the door. "Lea, Tempest?" It was Sora. "We heard a slam. Everything okay?"

"Yeah... You know how we were wondering about possibly merging Lea and his Nobody back together? That turned out to be so easy we actually did it by accident."

OOOOOOOOOO

Lea, Sora, Kairi, Naminé, and I had gathered to discuss the ramifications of this surprising development.

"So," Lea said, "we're _definitely not_ using my Nobody as a spy in the Organization."

"To be fair, that ship sailed several hours ago," I said. "Geez, has it really only been hours? It feels like it's been months."

"Really, it sailed the moment I snuck out to ask you all about Ro- er, Sora's Nobody." Lea blinked as his brain caught up to how he had phrased that. "Huh. That's weird."

"At least we have an easy way to get rid of the remaining crop of duplicate Nobodies," Sora mused. "Just shove them into their counterparts and _foom_ , problem solved."

"I'm not sure how that'd work with Isa and Braig's Nobodies. I still don't know what _precisely_ it implies that they have yellow 'nort eyes suddenly, but it can't be good for us."

"I've spotted another flaw in the plan," Kairi pointed out. With great dramatic flair, she brandished one finger and poked Naminé's cheek.

Nothing happened.

The two of them sat there like that for a few seconds, until Naminé spoke up. "You done?"

"Yeah, I'm done."

"Point made," I said, "there's clearly more to it than just a Nobody touching their counterpart. Though thinking about it, you two are rather non-central... members of the category 'Nobodies and their counterparts'. It's possible that you're just e- _not bound by_ the rule."

"Tempest," Kairi asked, "why do you keep almost saying something and then-"

(Of course, I already covered this subject with Lea, so I'm going to skip forward a bit.)

"-oh, I get it," she said.

"I don't... _think_ he can track us just by the letters in random words we say," Sora said. "Like, what if we're all deliberately misspelling it in our heads?"

"... Maybe," I admitted. "But I just really don't like the idea that... uh, 'No Heart', is able to spy on us at will. So I'm being ma- er, I'm being as cautious as possible. I'm even avoiding writing that letter in my journal. Though, thinking about it, I'm not sure that'll actually help, considering how many of them I must have written before this occurred to me..."

"I'm almost completely sure," Naminé said, "that ... _No Heart_ has to place the Recusant's Sigil himself if he wants to track it. It doesn't make sense any other way."

"... Probably. But I dunno what kinda loopholes he could be abusing to make things I write count as 'putting the sigil there himself', so just to be sure, I'm gonna go back and scribble out all the ones I already wrote."

 _[Editors' note: The X's redacted in previous portions of Tempest's journal were restored prior to publication to aid legibility.]_

I suddenly yawned, stretching. "Ah, shoot, it is _way_ too late... we were all supposed to be asleep ages ago. Enough for tonight. We can handle anything else in the morning."


	18. 16: Oh, That's Why

ATUHOR'S NOSE: This chapter is extra long, which serves as both an apology and an explanation for the wait. 8D

In this chapter, my intent for Tempest to be an ordinary person defined primarily by her own actions got in a fight with my intent for the self-insertion to have an in-universe explanation rather than It Just Happened Because That's The Premise Of The Fic, Shut Up. It took me a few tries, but I think this version of events fits with both ideas without unduly compromising either. Do feel free to express your own opinions on the matter in the form of a review.

* * *

So I overslept. I was tired, okay? In addition to staying up too late over the whole Lea-Nobody-merging _thing_ , I spent like half an hour after that agonizing over whether to cross out all the potentially-compromised letters in my journal before going to bed, or just go to sleep and do it in the morning. (When I did end up doing it, I realized to my great annoyance that it only took fifteen minutes.)

So when I did wake up, it was to an alarm that had clearly been going off for several minutes, combined with a Keychain pelting me in the face. "All right, uh," I looked up to see who had thrown the thing at me, "...Sora, I'm awake already." As I said this I was sliding out of the bed into a tangle of blankets, so it would hardly be accurate to say I was _up_.

"Hey, I gotta make sure," Sora said, just barely not stifling a yawn. "We gotta be ready for when the King arrives, and you're the only one left who wasn't at least awake."

"Bleh," I grumbled as I shuffled myself into a position where my legs were on the floor and my head was in the air, rather than the other way around. (I was working my way up to standing, okay?) "Why's stuff gotta happen early in the morning? It should be illegal, or at least regulated."

"Tempest, you're -" Sora yawned again. "- okay, _we're_ tired because stuff happened late at night. You're solving the wrong problem."

"Yeah, but I can _handle_ being up late. Gimme a 27-hour daily schedule any time." I yawned and picked the Keychain Sora had tossed out of my hair, where it had come to rest. "Hey, wait a minute, this is _mine_ ," I said, recognizing the candle-shaped trinket. "How did you even get this?"

"It's surprisingly easy," Sora said cryptically. "You were asleep, after all. Anyway, I guess I should leave and let you get dressed."

"You should at that," I said, choosing not to mention that I normally slept in most of my clothes anyway.

"Don't go back to sleep! If you're not downstairs in half an hour, I'm coming back to wake you up - actually, no, I'll send Aqua. She can drag you out of bed no matter what."

"What, and you can't?"

"I mean - uh, I probably _physically_ could, but you're a girl. I could drag Riku out of bed, but he always wakes up before I do anyway."

"Oh, the hetero 'nothing I haven't seen already' logic... In that case, I wouldn't recommend sending a cis girl any more than a boy, really."

"... Sis-girl?"

"Cis is the opposite of trans."

"Ah." A beat. "I don't know what 'trans' means here either."

"Oh, never mind, I'll define words later. It doesn't even matter because I'm gonna _be_ up and you're not going to have to send anyone anyway."

"Pff, if you say so." Sora made to leave, but paused at the door. "Though, I'm not actually straight."

"Hm?"

"You said it was 'hetero logic', but I'm not hetero, I'm bi."

"Well, I'm not hetero either, but when you live in the hetero house, you kinda end up following the hetero rules, whether you want to or not. Still, I shouldn't have assumed." I paused. "Actually, by the same token, I also shouldn't be assuming Aqua is cis. But habits of over two decades don't fade in a day."

Sora nodded. "That's definitely true... Can I ask how long?"

"Hm? Oh, I've known for... five years? Five and a half? My sense of time is awful, but I think that adds up."

"So it's not weird for people to figure themselves out pretty late in life."

"Indeed it is not. My go-to reference for that is Laura Jane Grace, who didn't come out as trans til she was... I want to say thirty-two years old? Somewhere in her thirties, I'm almost sure. And I heard of a lady who didn't even _realize_ she was lesbian until after she had had grandkids. Like, okay, it's _easier_ if you start earlier, all else being equal, but there's no upper limit, is what I'm saying."

Sora nodded again, eyes closed in thought.

"Um... do forgive me if I'm disrupting your train of thought while you're on the cusp of an epiphany, but I really do need to get dressed and stuff." (Actually, I didn't say the epiphany bit. It would have been cool foreshadowing, but in reality I didn't suspect a thing at this point.)

"Eep! Right, sorry!" And Sora swiftly absconded, shutting the door and leaving me to my privacy.

"Try the dictionary!" I shouted through the door as an afterthought.

I was _pretty_ sure that Sora was still in earshot and just didn't respond because shouting back would have been rude. _I hope Sora remembers what I'm referring to_ , I thought, _otherwise that would have just sounded pointlessly cryptic._

OOOOOOOOOO

Roughly twenty-seven minutes later, I descended the staircase, still kinda bleary-eyed and foggy-headed but _technically_ ready to face the day. As Sora had said, everyone else was already awake and studying, training, or otherwise Getting Stuff Done.

I drifted toward the training hall. Kairi and Naminé were sparring on one side, with Yen Sid instructing them, and Sora and Riku were sparring on the other side with Aqua watching.

"Oh, good," she said as she spotted me entering, "now there's an even number of us."

"Er, you're planning on sparring with me?" I asked nervously. (I actually looked behind me to see if she might be talking to someone else!) "And not, say, Riku?"

"I already sparred with Riku," she said false-sweetly. "It's Sora's turn to spar with him now. And anyway, I've been looking forward to testing you."

"Um. Are we doing _this_ scenario, then?" I sighed and shrugged. "No point in me resisting then, I suppose."

"Indeed there is not," Aqua said.

"The rules are simple," she continued, summoning Master's Defender. "Attack and block with our Keyblades only, no magic attacks or barriers. If you deal a clean, unblocked strike to your opponent's body, that's a point. If your opponent strays outside the circle for more than five seconds, that's a point. When a point is scored, combat stops and we return to the center. Healing is permitted between points only. The match ends when either one of us scores three points, or is unable to stand and cannot recover within thirty seconds. Understood?"

I nodded and summoned Voice of the Well.

"Riku, let's just watch their match," I heard Sora say suddenly. "You're clearly distracted."

"I am _not_ -" Clang! Way to the Dawn skidded across the floor until I put my foot out and stopped it in front of me. "... Okay, maybe I'm a _little_ distracted."

"Here," I said as I handed it back to Riku, "we needed someone to do a countdown anyway."

"Right. On my mark," he said, holding his Keyblade between me and Aqua.

"Three...

"Two...

"One...

"Begin!"

Aqua immediately dashed at me with an overhand strike, which I quickly blocked, locking our Keyblades.

As we struggled, something felt off. On a hunch, I suddenly dismissed my Keyblade and dodged to the side. While Aqua stumbled, I brought back my Keyblade and tapped her lightly on the head with it.

"Point to Tempest!" Riku called.

We returned to our starting positions and I glared at Aqua, arms akimbo. "Are you trolling me right now? That was _nothing_ like your full strength. Fight seriously."

She glared right back. "I was sure..."

"That I would fight like a rank amateur?"

"You _are_ a rank amateur."

"... That's technically true, isn't it." I shook my head. "Well, you were anticipating _something_ that wasn't correct. So fight seriously. Ready, Riku."

Aqua readied her Keyblade. "Ready."

"Begin!"

This time, she came at me much faster. I swiftly parried her strikes until she suddenly vanished. "Wha-" I didn't quite get the entire word out before I felt a heavy strike from behind.

"Point to Aqua!" Riku called.

"Why is everyone always hitting me in the left shoulder?" I grumbled, casting a quick Cure.

" _Now_ who's the one not fighting seriously?" Aqua retorted.

"And I had just chewed _you_ out for the same thing. Kinda embarrassing." I took a deep breath to clear my head. "Well. We're one to one now, and we're both ready to fight seriously, so let's say that was the warmup. Ready, Riku."

"Ready."

"Begin!"

This round I tried to surprise her by being the one to charge first, but she somehow anticipated this and immediately warped out of sight.

Somehow the concepts "overabundance of caution" and "spinning whirlwind attack" feel like they don't belong in the same sentence, but nevertheless my brain put them together.

My Keyblade (and also my everything else) halted with a _clang_ against Aqua's. "Found you," I quipped before she smacked her free hand against my chest.

"Point to Aqua!" Riku called.

"What was _that_ supposed to accomplish?"

"Keep you from sneaking up on me from behind again. And hey, it technically worked."

"Yeah, but you were obviously dizzy. A move that leaves you wide open like that without even disabling your enemy is less than useless."

"She's right," Riku said. "I normally wouldn't have called that, but you were clearly impaired."

"Oh, I figured it was because in a real battle she could have cast a spell point-blank there." I quickly spun once in the opposite direction to counteract the dizziness. (This works! Try it at home!)

"That too - but if you hadn't been impaired, you could have moved away. Ready?"

"Ready," we both responded.

"... Begin!"

This time we both went at each other as aggressively as possible. Aqua used warp attacks even more aggressively than before, but this round I had the sense to just figure out where she went and block her.

I was starting to get frustrated with her teleport spam when I felt something odd. _I wonder if I could -_ and when she attacked again, instead of blocking, I _Jumped_ -

\- and came down behind Aqua with an overhead strike. She whirled around and blocked it just in time - improbably halting me entirely in mid-air.

Bewildered as I was by multiple violations of what I thought was physics, I still had the presence of mind to keep attacking - I lashed out with a kick to Aqua's shoulder, knocking her back, and without her Keyblade (somehow) holding me in mid-air, I tumbled to the ground.

"Point to Tempest!" Riku called.

"That was new," I said as I picked myself up.

"The warping, or the aura?" Aqua asked.

"Both... wait, _what_ aura?" I looked down at myself. There was definitely a distinct aura of green flame. A rather distinct shade of green, in fact. "Um. Do any of the Masters in the room recognize this?"

Yen Sid looked contemplative. Riku looked concerned. Aqua looked intense. But none of them answered.

"Okay. I'm taking that as a 'no'. I don't know where this came from or what it does. So I'm gonna turn it off now." I took a breath and focused, and thankfully, the flickering flames faded away without protest.

"Gosh. Have I walked in on something big?"

A five-year-old would recognize _that_ voice anywhere. Most of the room rushed over to greet King Mickey.

I glanced over to Aqua. "Call it a draw? I was already getting distracted _before_ His Majesty showed up with my brother in tow."

"Your brother? The boy in the hallway, trying to stay out of sight?"

"That's the one." I waved to Luke, showing him that his attempts at stealth had failed. He facepalmed and then waved back with a resigned look on his face.

Aqua shrugged, dismissing her Keyblade. "I suppose we can call the match a draw, yes. I already learned what I wanted..." And with that cryptic comment, she left.

I stood there for a few seconds, befuddled. _Well, I hope she got a good impression_ this _time, then._

OOOOOOOOOO

Shortly thereafter, seven of us were gathered in Yen Sid's study: me, Luke, the four Masters - and Sora, for some reason. If this had been another game, I'd have chalked it up to "main character privileges", or some such thing.

But I didn't have to wonder long. King Mickey opened the discussion with a question: "Who here already knows what happens when a world falls to darkness?"

Of course the other Masters already knew. Sora's hand went up as well, and Luke said "kinda?"

"'Kinda'?" I asked. "What do you mean you 'kinda' know?"

"Well, it goes into the Realm of Darkness, and sits there in a sort of stasis. And it passes through the Dream Realm on the way."

"Wait, it does?"

"Do you not remember that?"

I thought about it. "... I think I fell asleep, so maybe I missed it. Or maybe I forgot it, because people usually forget dreams."

"You definitely forgot it," Sora suddenly chimed in. "But I didn't."

I took a moment to attempt to process the implications behind _that_ little bombshell. "... wait, _what?_ "

"I was on my way out after... a certain mission, in the Dream Realm, when I spotted your worlds passing through. Of course I rushed over to try to help, but it there was a fair distance to cover, and by the time I got there all that was left was a few scattered fragments - but two of the fragments had people on them.

"King Mickey was monitoring the mission, so I called him in for help. He went to help the other person - that turned out to be Luke, right?" Both Luke and King Mickey nodded.

"Unlike you," Luke said, "I was actually conscious for this. I think you can see where this is going, though."

I nodded. "So... somehow, maybe just for a moment, Sora's Keyblade found its way into my hand, and King Mickey's into Luke's. And that unlocked our whatevers."

"Mm... Yes, _somehow_ , that's the word for it," Luke said.

"Wait," Aqua interrupted, "so you didn't do a Bequeathing on purpose? But I thought that was really rare. Kairi is a Princess of Heart, so I'm not surprised that her heart's light is so strong, but... no offense, but you two look pretty average."

I thought about that for a moment. "I don't know what to tell you about that one. I do _feel_ pretty average. Sora, what do you remember?"

"Well, the moment your hand touched my Keyblade, there was this flash and I was overlooking your Awakening. ... Most of what you said in there was kinda personal, actually, but you also said a bunch of stuff about where you thought people got their Keyblades. And that kinda brings us back to the point of this meeting - I wanted to know how you could possibly know that." Sora paused for a moment, thinking. "And you said something about if this was a video game, and I said this _isn't_ a video game, and you _snickered_."

I snrk'd.

"Just like that!"

"Well, uh... I still don't actually remember doing this, but that _is_ precisely how I would react to a statement like that."

"Yeah, but _why_? What do you know that we don't?"

"To be fair, I'm pretty sure King Mickey also knows about this. In fact, at the moment I think His Majesty knows _more_ about this than I do."

The King thought about that statement for a moment. "While I probably do know more about the broad concept behind your worlds, I imagine you know more of the details of this particular instance. So let's start with what you know."

"Um, hm. That's pretty broad, where do I start... The normal speculative fiction convention is to refer to it as 'Earth', but I don't think that _works_ here, because there are multiple other worlds that, somehow, are also Earth. The Fifth City, for one, plus a lot of other worlds I can recall that I haven't actually been to. The Land of Dragons, La Cite des Cloches, Beast's Castle, one part of whatever you call the _Star vs._ world... Probably more I've forgotten. So its canonical name is probably something other than 'Earth'.

"The laws of physics are a lot more strict and math-based - magic seems to be impossible, for starters. Memories work _completely_ differently; you can't mess with them from afar by any means, because they're securely stored in the brain(s) of the person(s) who were there at the time." (Please don't ask how I did that with my mouth.) "Actually, thinking about it, 'secure' might be the wrong word, considering how easy it is to mess with memories even without mystical stuff involved. Never mind. What else springs to mind...

"Oh, right. Every world I've seen so far has a counterpart work of fiction in my world. That's how I know so much stuff I apparently have no logical reason to know, so it's probably important."

There was a bit of a commotion at this. Apparently everyone (other than Luke and King Mickey, who of course already knew) had predicted something else.

"How does that _work_?" Aqua asked. "How do your people even know about these places?"

"Well, like I said, we think we're making them up. Thinking about it, though, that kinda makes _less_ sense..." I thought about this for a few moments and then shrugged. "I dunno. Do you know, Your Majesty?"

"Hmmm... The thing about that is, there's an awful lot of other stuff you gotta know before the answer to that makes any real sense. But the short version is, while they don't know the _mechanism_ behind that, we're pretty sure we know the _reason_."

"'They'?"

"There used to be a group of people who studied your worlds, but once they realized they were isolated on purpose, they disbanded, to avoid potentially dangerous interference. So nowadays, there's a few people quietly watching it on their own."

"One of which is you."

"Precisely. But this was answered before they disbanded, so all I had to do was look it up. Tell me, Tempest - do you know where hearts come from?"

I blinked. That came out of nowhere. "Uh - well, I know _one_ way hearts come into e- being. If anything - like a puppet, or a program, or a Nobody - thinks of itself as a person for long enough, and forms connections with other people, it eventually forms a heart. What does that have to do with my world?"

"Well, what if I said that that was the _only_ way hearts come to be?"

Sora and Riku looked about as surprised by this as I felt. (Which is to say, moderately. This mechanism meant that the multiverse had just one set of rules for the whole thing, which is how physics _normally_ works, and I hadn't recalled anyone describing any _other_ methods. So it made sense, even if I hadn't seen it coming.)

"Then..." I responded slowly, "... since worlds _themselves_ have hearts... that could only happen if worlds are sapient. And - Kingdom Hearts is the heart of _all_ worlds, right?" (King Mickey nodded.) "Which means the _multiverse_ is sapient too. So... the multiverse created my world, isolated from the rest of the worlds but with sneaky vision into them. For a reason. Which you know."

The King nodded again. "Since your worlds had more barriers, it was harder for the Heartless to get into them -"

"Okay, you keep doing that. That's three times now, so I _know_ you're actually saying it and that's not just my hearing. What do you mean, my _worlds_?"

"Well... you mentioned 'the _Star vs._ world'. Do you mean the Mewni Constellation?"

"I _also_ mentioned that I don't know what you canonically call it. ... But that does sound like the sort of thing, so probably."

"Well, the Mewni Constellation, much like yours, is a cluster of sub-worlds, where travel between the sub-worlds is more difficult than what we normally think of as intra-world travel, but less difficult than leaving the cluster entirely. But your worlds aren't _different_ like the ones in the Mewni Constellation - your worlds are... more like branches on the same tree. You see, whenever -"

"Hold up. Is this just going to be many-worlds quantum mechanics? I may not be a quantum physicist, but I do already have a vague idea of how that works."

"Uh... close enough."

"Okay. ... I keep interrupting you and asking for new answers before you could finish your last one. Where were we? Something about barriers."

"Right! There were more barriers around your worlds, so the Heartless would have more difficulty getting into them - which meant that if they got in _anyway_ , the worlds were in _really_ big trouble, and it was time to break out the really sneaky tricks."

"I think you skipped a step - what are these really sneaky tricks you're referring to?"

"Well, between the branches and the leaked information about other worlds, there would be sure to be someone who knew just the right things to help stop whatever had gone so wrong."

"So... I survived my worlds' fall to darkness... because I knew about video games? And _the universe itself_ chose me to survive, based on _that_? Cause I gotta tell you, this doesn't sound like that well-thought of a plan. If I hadn't coincidentally gotten a Keyblade from Sora, I'd likely have just become a tourist and not been all that much help at all."

"Cid _did_ mention that you were trying to get a gummi ship assembled..." Sora mused.

"Tempest." Yen Sid spoke up suddenly. (I started, having forgotten he was there. Scatterbrained and high-strung is a _bad_ combination.) "You have no Master, but I have seen you training on your own. You did this diligently and without prompting. Now, am I to understand that, due to the eccentricities of your world, you were aware of the Keyblade tradition for quite some time?" I nodded, unsure where he was going with this. "I thought as much. You showed a keen interest in the art. And you were aware of my tower's location..."

"Ah." So he was suggesting that I would have sought out Keyblade apprenticeship on my own, just because I liked Keyblades that much. He wasn't wrong... "But you already have two apprentices."

"I could have made accommodations - but even had I been unable, would that knowledge have stopped you?"

I blinked. "... I really should anticipate 'wise old master' types being this insightful."

At this point, while I had accepted that I was a _valid_ choice, I was still pretty skeptical that I was the _best_ choice. Even with the criteria presented, there had to be dozens - possibly _hundreds_ of valid choices, and as Aqua had said, I seemed pretty average. But I didn't want to get the conversation even further off track, so I kept quiet. That sort of thing tends to be a mistake, you know...

"Um, let's see... weren't there some other questions left on the stack?" Everyone thought about that (other than Luke, who was instead occupied by finding my phrasing inordinately amusing), but nobody responded. "Did... we actually get to everything?"

"This seems like a good point to take a break, then," King Mickey said. "A nap, for instance," he added, glancing at Sora, who was yawning.

"Blame Lea and his Nobody for that," Sora said. "They're the reason we stayed up so late."

Sora began recapping last night's events to King Mickey, and everyone else started drifting out, but I stuck around for a bit. After a while, I was alone with Yen Sid.

"So... I had a thought recently, and I was looking for some relevant research material..."

OOOOOOOOOO

An hour or so later, I was in the magic training room, with the books Yen Sid had recommended lying open on a table. Several training dummies were scattered about from my tests. Comparing against what the books said...

"... This green fire is literally just Neath-flavored darkness."

Which, in retrospect, I absolutely should have seen coming from the beginning.


	19. 17: I'm an ENDLESS BARREL of exposition!

ATUHOR'S NOSE: As you can see, I'm not quite dead yet! There were multiple reasons for this delay, but I think my _primary_ mistake was splitting up a transitiony bit into two chapters. Even though that felt like a _really good_ note to end a chapter on.

If this had taken my usual two-ish weeks, I'd be making a comment about E3 right now. But now it feels too late.

This chapter was betaread by Nightress5. Acknowledge their awesomeness!

* * *

I glared at the books, annoyed. Then I glared at the striking dummies. I switched back and forth a few times before giving up. "Oh, _whatever_ ," I griped, slamming a book shut. "This is _basically_ what I was trying to do anyway. I just... hyperfocused on the effects I wanted and forgot that reality is messier than that." I started to put away the striking dummies, grumbling indistinct recriminations towards my past self.

"Having trouble, Tempest?" Aqua asked as she entered the room.

"One could make such an assertion," I said, unnecessarily cryptic. "But it's nothing I can't handle... so far, at least."

"You're not planning to do anything reckless, right?"

"Planning? Oh, no, nothing of _that_ sort." Aqua didn't seem particularly pacified by this pointedly precise platitude. "No, I already did the reckless thing." Now she looked _even less_ reassured.

" _ **Elaborate,**_ " she growled in possibly the most intimidating tone I had ever heard in my entire life. Or maybe it just seemed that way because she also had her Keyblade pointed directly between my eyes.

"Whoa! Hello there. Overkill much. Um." Carefully, without making any sudden movements, I placed two fingers on the Keyblade's teeth and gently nudged it to the side, so it was pointed _away_ from my face. "I'm, uh, not entirely sure what you thought just then, but I feel fairly confident in guessing that I did a different and less dangerous thing."

Aqua still looked skeptical. "Look," I said, "you see the books, right?" I didn't know if she'd recognize them off-hand, but the titles weren't subtle. "Does anything obvious spring to mind?"

"... So you were also worried about the darkness in your heart."

"Well, I... hang on, 'also'? When did _you_ think of this?"

"The moment we met. You reminded me of Terra. Reckless, impulsive," Aqua paused, "... trusting, and naive..."

"You... got all that from one conversation?"

"Well, I might have imagined part of it -"

"I mean, you're right on the mark, so even if you imagined it... I don't think you did, though." I pondered this. "I really ought to stop being surprised when people who are much older and wiser than me are so dang insightful."

"'Much older and wiser'? I've got four years on you, tops."

"Okay, _slightly_ older and much wiser. Still."

Aqua let out that exasperated-amused noise halfway between a sigh and a chuckle. You know the one. She took another glance at the books, as if to confirm that they were the same ones she had looked at one minute ago. "You really are trying to _avoid_ being consumed by darkness, huh?"

"I do have a general preference _not_ to be consumed by things, yes."

"And you're not looking for an easy path to power?"

"If there was a path to power that was easy and worth it, everyone would be taking it, not just No Heart."

"No Heart?" Of _course_ she didn't immediately know who that was. I was trying to figure out how to clarify when the penny (1-munny piece?) dropped. "Oh, you mean-"

"Don't!" I interrupted. Very loudly. Maybe too loudly, judging by Aqua's flinch. "... Sorry. But after remembering that he could track people by putting his initial on them, I've gotten super paranoid about saying any word containing it."

"... Such as the names of everyone in the Organization?"

"Yeah! It makes talking about them really annoying, like we're up against a whole team of Voldemorts." I shuddered at that thought.

"I don't know what a Voldemort is..." _Oh, jeez_ , I thought, _am I going to have to go into ridiculous detail about Harry Potter now?_ (*) I was trying to figure out where to start when she continued speaking. "...but you seemed awfully demoralized to think of the Organization as a whole team of them. And it struck me that... well, where did you originally learn that our enemy could track that letter?"

(*Yes, I know - in retrospect, it clearly would have been quite sufficient to say 'Voldemort was a fictional evil dude who everyone was scared of saying his name'. I was sleep-deprived. Moving on...)

"Um? Well..." She seemed to have skipped a few steps, but I went with it. "You know about the video game thing. This happened in the most recent release... One of the 'norts, I forget which one, was info-dumping about how the whole thing had been a trap for Sora, and the crossed straps on their new outfits were how they'd tracked them the whole time. 'As your flesh bears the sigil, so shall your name be known as that of a recusant'.

"... Hey, wait a second. Why'd he tell Sora any of that? If that particular vessel needed to be independently told something the group already knew for some reason, that could have happened afterward. Or else, if the plan failed, he'd have leaked one of their primary spying tools to the enemy for no benefit."

"No benefit?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "It freaked _you_ out pretty good."

"Aqua, that _can't_ have been intentional! Knowing things might be his superpower, but there's _absolutely no way_ he knew that a video game was delivering his monologue to a remote observer."

"Oh, of course, there's no way he knew _that_. But look at what he _did_ know. He knew that if Sora escaped, they would absolutely tell us everything. And he _did_ plan for that possibility in other ways, so the idea that he overlooked this consequence..."

"... So, what, you think he sacrificed a powerful observational tool to inconvenience and demoralize us slightly?"

Aqua shrugged. "I know you weren't serious, but I wouldn't put it past him, under the right circumstances. Still, I had something else in mind. You know that he can't have made 'two crossed lines are trackable by the forces of darkness' into a fundamental property of the universe, right?"

"Aqua, I just learned that everything I thought I knew about physics was made up by the soul of the multiverse as misdirection so it could present the reality of other worlds as fiction without risking us figuring out that magic was a thing. I'm kinda restarting science from the beginning, here."

"... That's fair," Aqua said, shrugging again. "Well, you can get primary school physics books from... maybe not Yen Sid's library, actually. You might have to wait until we have time to go back to Traverse town and borrow them from Merlin. Until then, the simple version. Modifying fundamental rules of physics requires the creation of a closed space - such as your worlds, actually. Overriding the true laws of physics with the strict math-based version you learned would never work outside a closed space."

(It was fascinating watching Aqua teach. She just needed a pointer and a blackboard to complete the archetypal professor image.)

"Now, the Recusant's Sigil obviously never worked that way. There are a number of ways he could have pulled this off, like giving a tracking spell a transmissible element and overcharging it - but the main thing they'd all have in common is that he'd have to put in one huge burst of magical energy at the very beginning, and when that was used up, the whole spell would fall apart all at once."

"So, what, he'd have to recharge it every so often, right?"

"In practice, no. As the spell spread throughout space - and _time_ , because _of course_ time travel would get involved," she added with a look of utter disgust on her face, "it would become more and more inefficient to recharge. He could do it anyway, especially early on, but eventually it would grow beyond his power to maintain."

I tilted my head in thought. "So... that would imply..." I knew where she was going with this, but I didn't want to say it.

Aqua just watched me, expectantly. She knew I knew and she wasn't gonna let me off the hook.

"... when the spell ran out of energy, it'd be done, pretty much for good. I mean, he _could_ repeat it, but he'd be starting from square one, and..." I left unspoken a hunch that his... magical capacity or whatever, might not be what it once was. Voicing something like that without solid evidence seemed like a good way to ensure that at a critical moment he'd be all 'FYI I am not left handed' and pull a bunch of additional magic out of his rear end. "... Well, suffice to say he's not going to, is he?"

"Most likely not."

"In which case... all he'd have left is the _idea_ of the Recusant's Sigil. Sacrificing that for a cheap bluff would be basically free. ... So the sigil doesn't work anymore and he can't track a damn thing, and I'm a dumbass." I buried my face in my hands and let out an anguished groan. "I completely played myself, didn't I?"

Aqua patted my shoulder. "Don't feel too bad. It happens when you're dealing with Xehanort's schemes."

"That's.. definitely true. Yes, you're right again," I said, picking myself up and continuing to put away what was still scattered about. "No more whining about how foolish I feel. Gotta focus on the now and the future and all that stuff."

Aqua blinked. "That was... a quick turnaround."

"Well, I wasn't _that_ aggrieved about it. Nothing really _happened_ because of my mistake, it was just kind of annoying for a while. Plus, on the bright side - the annoyance is _over_. I can _just say things_ again without having to be vigilant all the time over how they're spelled."

Aqua gave me a skeptical look. "... You're being relentlessly positive on purpose."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I know a sunny attitude isn't a get-out-of-darkness-free card - just look at Sora, right? - but my natural inclination would be to wallow in self-loathing and berate myself for falling for that obvious bluff like a big dumb idiot, and that would _definitely_ go badly."

"Ah. That's why you're worried."

"One of the reasons, yeah. Anyway, you came here to train, right? I mean, you didn't _say_ why, but this is a training room, so it's the most obvious guess..."

"Actually, I came here to speak to you."

"Oh! Well, uh, you've _been_ doing that, but if there's any particular topic you still need to address, I'm listening."

She paused for a moment as I finished putting away the training equipment. "The thing is... I'm not ready to take apprentices yet. Even considering that I have to recover from being stuck in the Realm of Darkness, I just don't have enough experience yet."

"Y'know," I interjected, "I don't know why the Keyblade tradition doesn't have this, but back home, systems like this didn't promote people straight from 'apprentice' to 'master'. There was an in-between step where they were independent but not ready to take apprentices, called 'journeyman'. And I mean, I'm aware that there's a vague understanding that new Keyblade Masters need to... master around for a bit before they can train apprentices, but this was a formal part of the system."

"Hmm. Interesting. What were the qualifications for graduating from journeyman to master?"

"Well, I was never part of such a system myself, so I'm working with osmosis here - for all I know, I might have said something incorrect already. But I vaguely recall that there would usually be a guild involved, and a journeyman would need to produce a masterwork that the guild would evaluate... not entirely sure how that correlates to what is effectively magical knight-errantry, but Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam seems to be approximately equivalent.

"Oh, but I totally interrupted you. You were saying?"

"Right. Well, I'm not ready to take apprentices _yet_. But when I am, you'll be the first to know."

I nodded. "All right then." A pause. "If you ask me, you'll definitely make a good teacher."

"Well, I've wanted to teach for most of my life. Even before I apprenticed with Master Eraqus, I always figured I'd teach _something_ when I grew up. If I'm passing on the Keyblade, though, I'll have to choose my students much more carefully than I had imagined when I was twelve."

"Yeah, this kind of power could... well, _already is_ doing a lot of damage in the wrong hands. Then again, Xehanort apparently seemed perfectly reasonable right up until the day he interfered in your Mark of Mastery exam..."

Just then, somewhat inconveniently, my phone chimed. "Hm..?" A quick glance at the text notification. "Oh, it's Luke. ...We're about to head out?" He had included a reason, of course, but the preview cut it off.

"I thought we were only taking a short break."

"I also thought that," I said, reading the remainder of the message. "It seems Organization members have been spotted on all three target worlds, so we gotta head out and hit them before they start messing things up. So the rest of the meeting is postponed."

XXXXXXXXXX

I blinked.

We were on a Gummi Ship. 'We' here being me, Luke, Sora, and Mickey.

"Hold up. I think..." _we skipped too much with that scene break_ , I didn't say, because this fic has a fourth wall. "... I zoned out a bit. A lot. The entire planning process. What are we doing, again?"

"Well," Mickey said, "we've split up into three teams, to go after all three targets at once."

"Must be nice," I mused, "actually having enough people, for once. Usually darkness way outnumbers light. It's even built into the χ-blade scenario that we're outnumbered nearly two to one."

"Still," Sora said, "with the original Organization back for no reason, Xehanort has a bunch of extra allies. We're not out of the woods yet."

"Sure, but I figure most of them will merge with their originals as readily as Axel and Lea did," Luke said. "Though with whatever the deal is with Saïx and Xigbar now, they might be more complicated."

"I wonder if..." I shook my head suddenly. "And I've brought us off track again. What is our group doing, right now, specifically?"

"We're going to Shibuya," Luke said. "Plan is to meet up with Joshua if possible, or anyone else we know. They'll help us find where our Organization member is hiding."

"Wait a sec - we're all alive, will we even be able to see into the UG?"

"We're not expecting that to be -" Mickey started saying, but was interrupted.

"What do you mean 'we're all alive'?!" Sora interrupted.

I blinked, perplexed. "Are... some of us _not_ alive?"

Luke poked himself in the shoulder. "No, I don't think _that's_ the issue," he said, grinning. "I think someone just forgot to explain to Sora the finer details of the _Reapers'_ Game. But as His Majesty was about to explain, we don't expect to need to see into the UG. If you recall the ending of that game, everyone's alive again now."

"Yeah, but - Sora, you met them in the dream realm, right? And they were in the Reapers' Game again. Which might also have been the first time...? The point being, I have no idea what the timeline actually looks like."

Mickey shook his head. "This time, we don't need to rely on your memory. I contacted Joshua before we left... I told you I was going to do that, Tempest. Don'tcha remember?"

"Mm... like I said earlier, I lost some time there, so maybe that's why I don't."

"Hmm." Mickey tilted his head in thought. "Does it happen to you often, losing time like that?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Not frequently, I don't think. This would be the first time since I left my world... I didn't keep close track of how often it happened back home, because it never seemed to interrupt anything important. But it couldn't have been more than an hour or so every few weeks." A thought suddenly occurred to me. "Hey, you don't think that -?"

"I think," Mickey said, "you ought to keep an eye on yourself, and tell someone if you get worried about what you see. It might be nothing, but after your little experiment in London -"

"Hey, wait, how do _you_ know about that?"

Luke raised a guilty hand. "We've been keeping in touch since the beginning, and... I thought, since I don't know anything about that, someone else should know. Just in case."

I sighed. "Okay. A perfectly sensible precaution. I'm not actually mad, but in the future, please ask beforehand."

Sora looked back and forth between the three of us in confusion. "Uh, did I miss something?"

I groaned quietly. "I'd have preferred not to talk about this," I muttered. But then I shook my head. "I guess I should have thought about that before I did it. So, you know how Points of Shadow only go off when light and darkness clash nearby. After setting off my second Point, I had a 'clever' idea - if our enemies are all dark, what if I stopped being light? And as it happens, the Fifth City has some... _interesting_ rituals. So I decided to do something super reckless..."


	20. Omake Interlude 1

ATUHOR'S NOSE: This is a collection of non-canon omake I was slowly assembling, with the intent of publishing whenever I happened to feel it was a good time to publish such a thing.

They're a bit unpolished, because I published them early as an excuse to attach a PSA about a site issue. The issue has since been resolved.

Next proper chapter's coming in slow and steady like the last one, please enjoy these omake.

* * *

 **What If: Tempest was a cynical bitch?**

"... and that is how you will find the remaining six Points of Shadow. Make haste, for allowing them to fall into the wrong hands could be disastrous."

"Or, alternately, hear me out here... I could _not_ do that."

"I'm sorry?"

"Look, I've been going along with this up til now because my brother asked me to, but if you think I'm gonna go traipsing about the worlds to fix some archaeological crap on nothing but your say-so, think again."

"And the danger to the worlds doesn't move you to act?"

"One: _no_ , actually. Xehanort is a danger to the worlds, and you don't see me charging off after _him_.

"Two: _What danger_? These things aren't _that_ unstable! It took a Princess of Heart to produce enough contrast to set off the one in Radiant Garden, so give Kairi a radar and tell her to keep her Keyblade sheathed when it beeps. Problem solved. Certainly nobody's gonna exploit them on purpose - nobody knows where they are! Have you considered keeping it that way?"

DiZ seemed taken aback by my vehemence. "Yet you agreed to aid Cid with no reluctance."

"Cid was gonna pay me. His offer was my ticket to freedom. _You_ just want me to run your errands."

"I see. And now that you have your freedom, you will abandon him."

"No, actually - I still want a Gummi Ship. Keyblade Gliders are awful." I sighed and decided to take pity on him. "Look, even if I was willing, we can't _do_ anything as it is. We don't know how to stop them from going off - what was I supposed to do, stick up a sign reading 'pwease no fighty'? Call me when you have a solution, and some form of compensation, and maybe then."

And so I spent a few weeks earning myself a Gummi Ship, and then I found the Fifth City and made friends with the Bohemians and ended up getting addicted to Prisoner's Honey. But the Points of Shadow never did get set off, and Xehanort did get defeated by Sora and company, so it all worked out.

* * *

 **What if: the fic was a bajillion times more pointlessly self-indulgent?**

"So what you're saying is, time flowed at a one-to-one rate between our worlds from the moment I first played _Kingdom Hearts 1_ some eleven-twelve years ago, and as a result you're actually all still the same age as me?"

"Yes," said the super-hot adult Riku.

"And _all three of you_ are romantically interested in me?"

"That's correct," said the amazingly sexy adult Kairi. "We all agree that adding you to the polycule would be great, because of how cute you are."

"By the way," Sora said, "I just now suddenly realized that I probably am also trans. You said you've been on HRT for about a year now? I would like to know how to start HRT, because... " Sora frowned at the script. "Really, _this_ is what you wrote?"

 **Uh?**

"I don't mean me being trans, I mean the line 'I am super jealous of your amazing rack'. I know you're being deliberately cheesy, but that's too much even for the self-parody gag."

"Yeah, that's a bit over the top," I said.

 **Hey, wait, you're literally me, how are you on the** _ **other**_ **side of the argument?**

I shrugged. "I split off from you almost a year ago, your time. Obviously we've diverged a bit."

 **... Sheesh, it** _ **has**_ **been almost a year, hasn't it? I'm surprised I haven't abandoned this fic. Or at least gone on hiatus. But never mind that, this omake has gone entirely off the rails so I'm gonna move on to the next one. Now.**

* * *

 **What if: this was specifically a RWBY-focused crossover fic?**

Sora, Riku, Kairi, and I were stumped.

The thing is, we needed to blend in. So we needed to fit the color-names theme.

Luckily, our own names weren't a problem. Sora = sky = blue and/or white. Riku = earth = brown and/or green. Kairi = sea = blue and/or green. Tempest = storm = grey and/or blue. No problem.

But what about our _team_ name?

"SRKT," I suggested, pronouncing it like "serket".

"Is that color-themed? What color?"

"Hmm..."

"Ooh, how about TRKS?" Kairi suggested, pronouncing it "tracks".

"See, I _want_ to say that'd work, because it should invoke the same colors as RNJR did, but I don't actually know _which_ colors, so I'd be bothered forever."

We pondered a bit longer.

"Ooh!" I exclaimed suddenly. "SKRT!" ("Skirt".)

"That's _definitely_ not a color," Kairi said.

"But I _like_ skirts... plus, all four of us wear skirts sometimes, so like, there's a theme!"

Riku seemed surprised by this knowledge. "All four...? Are you thinking of my Dark Mode outfit? Because I think that's technically a kilt."

"Also," Sora pointed out, "Riku lost that power ages ago, so he _doesn't_ wear it anymore."

" _Would_ you wear it?" I asked. "Just as an outfit, no connection to the power or corruption of darkness?"

Riku pondered this for a moment. "Scrap the Heartless emblem, obviously, but - maybe."

"RKTS!" Sora said suddenly. ("Rockets".)

" _To protect the world from devastation -_ " I started quoting before Riku cut me off.

"Nope. I dunno that reference, but you'd definitely make it obnoxious before long."

"Aww... STKR! Ooh, no, actually."

"Maybe if we pronounced it 'sticker' instead."

"Is that colorful?"

"Tempest, have you _seen_ a sticker?"

"Do these Remnant people really stick to the colorful theme naming _that_ strictly?"

"Yeah, something about an ancient war over art being banned... Y'know, if you three had slightly worse names, we could totally be team WTVR." ("Whatever." Yes, my exasperation is showing.)

The first to figure it out was Sora, and she immediately threw a pillow at me. "Unauthorized punning! 100-munny penalty!"

"Completely unauthorized," Kairi affirmed. "It's not even a color."

"A flagrant violation of the Punning Restriction Act Of Thirty Seconds Ago," Riku nodded.

After a slight joking-around distraction, it finally occurred to me that there were only 24 possibilities and we decided to just write them all down and we could choose that way. After carefully considering the pros and cons of each (read: discarding those that obviously sucked, which turned out to be most of them), we ended up going with "SKTR" ("skater"). Which, I mean, what with Flowmotion, we kinda could be considered skaters in that way.

Y'know, just as soon as Sora and Riku saw fit to teach us that technique.

"Hold up," Riku asked, "what does SKTR have to do with color, again?"

"Ice is blue and/or white, I think is the idea." Kairi said.

"Oh, I was imagining _roller_ skates." Sora said.

"The convention is flexible!" I said.

And so we went with it.


	21. 18: Nothing Relevant in Shinjuku, Surely

ATUHOR'S NOSE: This chapter was delayed for several reasons. The one I'm gonna admit to is that I spent November focusing on this neat thing called - ("NaNoWriMo! Right?") ... no, actually. Something more in my capacity. Light Novelber! (Don't think too hard about how that's pronounced.) The results of this event can be found at **itch dot io/jam/lightnovelber2018** . To find mine, just CTRL+F my penname... though I do recommend checking out the other entries as well! It's all a lot gayer than I've managed to get into this fic.

This chapter was unbeta'd, because I was in a hurry to get it out before the end of 2018... Listen, I _totally_ have good priorities. Shut up.

* * *

"... silver lining, though, the devils won't want it now. I have a sneaking suspicion that the soul of a Keyblade user would normally be highly desirable, for its rarity if nothing else."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "You were there less than a day. Did the devils even become aware of your existence?"

I shrugged. "Aware enough at the least to draw up a contract for buying my soul," I said, reaching into my backpack and pulling out the roll of parchment in question. A bright "VOID" stamp was visible on it.

"You just... carry that around with you?" Sora asked, incredulous.

"I certainly don't wanna leave it lying around. It's got my deadname on it, for some reason."

"Oh, _yikes_ ," Luke said. "That's super needlessly petty of them."

"The weird part is, I don't even know how the devils _know_ my deadname..." It briefly occurred to me that waving information they shouldn't have in front of my face immediately after I do the one thing they hate most _might_ have been the devils way of proving some kind of point. Well, if that was it, it hadn't worked, because I hadn't learned a damn thing, har har.

"I impulsively shredded my ID and stuff from back home," I continued, "when I realized it wasn't gonna be any use out here. So for a brief, shining moment, there wasn't a single document in the entire multiverse with my deadname on it. I actually tried scribbling it out with a marker when I first realized that they'd ruined that, but the damn thing _melted_."

"The ink?" Sora asked.

"The _marker_ ," I said. "Which was particularly annoying because I only had the one, and the Echo Bazaar doesn't carry them because they're above that world's tech level. I imagine I can pick one up in Shibuya, though."

A thought occurred to me. "Actually, I might be able to pick up _several_ things in Shibuya." I reached into my pocket to write a reminder on my phone and frowned when I found nothing. "Luke, did I do something weird with my phone while I was dissociating?"

"You lent it to Riku," he said. "Your logic was that our phones are more secure than their communicators, and we'll get more use out of that fact if they're on different teams. I'll let you decide for yourself if that qualifies as 'weird'."

"Hm," I hm'd. "Well, just to be sure, remind me before we leave..."

XXXXXXXXXX

Not too long after, we reached Shibuya. We landed in the Dead God's Pad, and after a disconcertingly quick conversation, Joshua shuffled us out into the station underpass.

After a brief pause to stand around awkwardly, I decided I had to break the silence. "What was _that_ all about? He just shoved Player Pins into our hands without explaining why he thought we'd need them. And 'stay out of Shinjuku'? Even if I _wanted_ to go to Shinjuku, I don't know how to get there. Uh, come to think of it, that means I don't know how to _avoid_ going there either..."

Sora frowned. "Your Majesty, Joshua wasn't that short with you when you contacted him before, right?"

Mickey shook his head. "He wasn't. In fact, he was downright chatty. In other words, he was his completely typical self before. Something must have come up in a real hurry."

"In Shinjuku, I assume," I said. "Wonder if it's connected?"

"Joshua obviously doesn't think so," Luke pointed out. "Otherwise, he'd have told us to go there straight off, rather than to stay away."

"Well, there's obvious places to check," I ventured. "There's probably nothing at the Room of Reckoning, Joshua would have noticed for sure. Pork City is..." I thought about that for a moment, suddenly realizing that every in-game appearance of the location was under unusual circumstances. "... an unknown quantity, but worth checking out. We could go to Cat Street and ask Hanekoma for help."

"If Joshua's not available, we should get _someone_ to help in his place," Sora said. "Do you know how to get around here?"

"Well, I memorized the in-game map over hundreds of hours of playtime," I said, shrugging, "but I'm only like 70% confident I can map that onto physical reality. And that's assuming there's no in-between bits the game abstracted out. Which probably there are."

"D'y'know," Luke spoke up suddenly, "this world has a working 3G network, and my phone can connect to it?"

"Really?" I said, intrigued. My first instinct would have been to check with my own phone, but that obviously wasn't an option at the moment. "How does that work, I wonder? Shouldn't it -"

"Focus, Tem." Luke said.

"Right, right," I said, shaking my head, "we have a task at hand. I guess, download a map if that's somehow not the first thing you thought of. And then... uh... that's all I can think of. Man, on-demand access to a complete database of all a world's knowledge seems like it should be more useful than that..."

"Well," he said, "it's not like it's going anywhere. Just tell me if you think of something. And in the meantime, let's start with Cat Street."

XXXXXXXXXX

We didn't start with Cat Street.

I don't mean anything nefarious happened. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Since we were on the entire other side of the city from our destination, we were of course going to pass by several major landmarks on the way, Not long after we left, we passed the statue of Hachiko, and...

"Sora?!"

"Wh- " Sora looked over to the source of the voice. "Rhyme! And..." Sora's head tilted in thought. "I don't think I've met your friend."

I stifled a giggle. Next to Rhyme was a slightly mousy-looking girl, with round glasses and a plain green shirtdress. Of course _I_ recognized Shiki's real form, but it seemed nobody had gotten around to informing Sora.

"You suuuuure we haven't met, Sora?" she teased, lifting a familiar feline plush and waving its paw at them.

Sora looked back at me in bewilderment, apparently hoping I'd have a hint to give from my extra-universal knowledge.

"You're smart, Sora," I said in my best faux-innocent voice, "I'm sure you can figure this out."

Sora frowned very loudly at me. "Are you messing with me?"

"Maybe," I admitted. "But come on, surely you recognize that cute pig doll -"

"He's a _cat_!" Shiki interrupted. "His name is Mr. Mew and he's a cat!"

Sora blinked. "... Shiki? You, uh, look different."

"Yeah, it's a long story," she said. "Basically, um..." She glanced at the rest of us. "It's a long story," she repeated.

"We all know about the Reapers' Game already," I volunteered. "If that's the thing you're concerned about." (Which I knew it was, of course, but I was hedging on purpose to avoid making that obvious.)

"Oh! Well, if you already know about that, then the short explanation is..." (gloss gloss gloss, you all know this bit already) "...and that's why I didn't say anything in Traverse Town. It's too bad Eri's busy today, though... but speaking of friends, who are yours?"

"Oh! This is King Mickey," ("Hiya!") "Tempest, and her brother Luke."

"Are Neku and Beat busy too?" I wondered idly.

"Little bit," Shiki said. "They said they would be able to meet us, but they'd be late. Rhyme and I just got here a minute ago, so I'm not worried yet."

I nodded. "As for what brings us to Shibuya today, we're looking for a black-cloaked troublemaker who may or may not have kidnapped one of our friends."

Rhyme started. "Black cloak? Does your troublemaker have pink hair, by any chance?"

"One of them does. Marluxia." He was on the short list of Organization members we hadn't encountered yet, so that made sense. "Did you see him?"

"Yeah, in Dogenzaka a few hours ago. I thought he was a Reaper - they visit the RG on occasion, after all, so I noticed, but didn't think much of it. I couldn't tell you where he was going or what he was doing, unfortunately."

"It's all right," I said, "it's enough to know he's here." _And so is the Point_ , I thought. _It won't be in a conveniently deserted location this time..._

"So," Sora said, "shall we start our investigation there? Marluxia's probably long gone, himself, but I bet the shopkeepers in the area remember him."

XXXXXXXXXX

After an hour or so of investigation, we had determined the following few facts:

Marluxia was largely hanging around in or near Dogenzaka; sightings dropped off sharply on leaving the area.

"So, Pork City," Luke concluded. "Another Day aside, Ramen Don's is not a hideout, and he's certainly not gonna be hiding in Cosmic Corner."

"That grumpy shopkeeper would rat him out, if nothing else," Sora muttered.

The Point of Shadow was _not_ in or near Dogenzaka.

"I guess, in retrospect, it makes sense that the Point isn't there," I admitted. "If the... waves and stuff, and the imaginary number planes, didn't mess with it, the battle between Neku and Sho would have, and it didn't. What I _don't_ get is why Marluxia isn't camping next to the Point, since their plans were explicitly _to_ do that."

"We'll check out the Point afterward and see if we can figure out why," Mickey said. "Marluxia being away from the Point will make our job much easier, so we need to act before it occurs to him to change that."

The most annoying thing we had discovered, though, was that the walls on Pork City's elevators existed in the RG.

"And no, I haven't seen your pink-haired miscreant," grumbled a bored-looking Support Reaper. "Either do the mission, or if you have no business here, take a hike."

"So... _not_ Pork City?" Luke mused.

"No, it makes too much sense for him to be here," I insisted, "but... if the Reaper hasn't seen him, that throws a wrench into things."

"Let's just do the mission," Sora said. "Joshua did give us these Player Pins, maybe this is what he had in mind."

I considered this. "That seems... _barely_ plausible... What the heck, I'm out of ideas, let's try it." I turned to Luke. "Pact?"

"Pact," he said, nodding. Obligatory light show, and we were official Reapers' Game partners... despite both of us being alive. I decided to look into how that could work when I got some time.

Sora and Mickey, needing no explanation, were already following our lead and forming their own pact. The four of us made quick work of the Noise scattered about the floor.

"... Okay, mission complete. Wall clear." They turned to leave, but paused. "... Are you guys the real deal?"

I glanced at the others, whose looks of confusion perfectly reflected how I felt about _that_ question.

"No clue," I told the Reaper, "I don't even know what those words mean in this context."

They pondered my non-response for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, we'll see, one way or the other." And with that, they faded out of sight, presumably into the UG.

When we got into the now-accessible elevator, we immediately noticed that most buttons were disabled. If it had been just 1F and 2F, that would have been expected, but to my surprise 13F was enabled as well.

But there were dozens of possible reasonable explanations for this. The _really_ weird part was that the second floor was entirely empty.

"So, why is it enabled at all?" I mused. "Who has control over where the elevator is allowed to stop, anyway?"

"Support Reapers, I imagine," Luke said. "At least, that would fit with everything else we know. Regardless, it looks like the only way up is _all_ the way up."

I wasn't gonna complain about that. Burning through thirteen floors of chump Noise, even if I was bypassing the pin brand restriction by fighting with a Keyblade, had always been my least favorite part of this game.

There was nothing on the thirteenth floor except an exit to the roof. We carefully trode up, hoping but not expecting to find Roxas conveniently left unguarded. We were not pleasantly surprised.

Marluxia was looking out over the city, looking almost wistful. Actually, since Nobodies can grow new hearts, maybe he really was wistful. "Tell me, miss Tempest. What purpose does Roxas serve to your plans?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Bold of you to assume I _have_ plans. My style has always ever been improvisation. Even if I had bothered to create a plan, I'd probably just forget it. And anyway - rescuing Roxas isn't because it serves my purposes, it's because he deserves better than being ensnared in your grip to serve _your_ purposes."

"Truly?" he retorted. "But all we want is to recover our hearts." Something about that pinged as strange, but I ignored it for the moment.

"Uh, are you aware that you can just grow a new one?" I said. "It's literally as simple as being a person on purpose. You don't have to get roped into whatever hypercomplicated bullshit Xemnas is feeding you."

"Don't I? I'm afraid I don't see the reason in your claims."

And then I realized. "Wait a sec... didn't you actively betray Xemnas and the rest of the Organization? Why are you going along with him so readily now?"

"Perhaps, in another lifetime." He turned around and I realized what was wrong as I saw his eyes were Xehanort yellow. "But in this one, I'm rather too entangled in the Superior's plans to take another path."

Marluxia held out a pin and a Noise insignia formed on it. "These creatures... so like the Heartless, and yet subtly different. They might have served our purposes, but try as I might, it seems they simply can't exist outside this world. But in the end, all we truly need is seven lights and thirteen darknesses... as we currently find ourselves with an abundance of both, the Noise will at least serve to prune the excess!"


	22. 19: Accomplishments: Maybe?

ATUHOR'S NOSE: I aten't dead!

I did a little retcon thing before publishing this chapter. It involved changing one (1) line that contradicted a fact I had decided was true in this fic. If that fact ever actually comes up (in 20 chapters and 5 years, at this rate), you will immediately realize which line I changed, unless you already forgot that line was ever there.

This chapter took 16 days to write, once I finally figured out what I was doing with it. That's in line with my normal pace, so am I back on my game? Or did I just call down the wrath of the hubris curse thing? The world may never know, and by "never" I mean "if I haven't updated in about a month it'll be really obvious which thing has happened".

* * *

Swipe, slash, zap, spin, pass the light puck this way and that... it took us an embarrassing amount of time to realize that Marluxia was not actually intending to participate in this battle.

"Hey, Tem... is it just me, or are there _more_ of them than when we started?"

I paused in my attack. "There are... _definitely_ a whole lot of those purple staticky foxes, yes." And then, in a blink, there were a whole lot more of them, as they duplicated themselves before my eyes.

"What the hell?! That's cheating!"

Expectant pause.

"Frick! Marluxia's gone." He would definitely have made some snarky comment there about how 'cheating is just what the losers call strategy'.

"If he just dropped these Noise and left..." Luke trailed off. "Wait, how do we get _out_ of the Noise planes?"

I cringed. "Well, um... We press start and tap 'Gotta Bounce', except for real somehow." _Why is super basic stuff always so much harder in real life than in video games oh wait I answered my own question._ "Heck it. Let's try - Exit!" and with a burst of magic, we were back in the RG.

We looked around. No sign of Marluxia. He had probably already Corridor'd out.

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Exit? Not Teleport?"

"This is the variant that can be cast on adversaries. Which obviously I didn't do just now, but it seems like a useful ability to have."

Sora and Mickey conveniently chose that exact moment to return to the RG as well. They looked around frantically. "Where's Marluxia?" Sora asked.

"Gone," I said. "I think he was just here to stall us." I paused, frowning. "Though, wouldn't sticking around have done that more effectively...?"

"Unless... he just wanted you to _think_ he was stalling you and leave without searching properly?" Sora suggested.

"No, sticking around would have done that more effectively too." I tilted my head in thought. "Maybe... something came up and he had to address it immediately?"

"Or _maybe_ he's been relieved."

All four of us whirled to face Vanitas, Keyblades out. (For the record, he had his helmet on, so nobody felt inclined to ask any awkward questions about why he looked exactly like Sora.) After a tense moment, I took a breath and lowered mine.

"Tempest?" Mickey asked.

"I... have a hunch, Your Majesty," I said. "Maybe it's just my imagination, but... Well, on another subject - how did you get back, Vani?"

Vanitas started. " _Vani_?"

I shrugged loudly. "Do forgive my unwarranted familiarity. You remind me of a friend from back home. Also, as long as you're still on Team Evil I'm gonna feel morally obligated to be at least a little bit annoying to you. Vani."

He shook his head. "While the nickname is hilariously brazen, it's possible that you're just weird." ("Only _possible_? You insult me.") "No, what I'm stuck on is that you knew my name at all. Or anything about me at all, up to and including the fact that I even exist."

"Oh? Big X didn't fill you in on the twist in the tale that is my strange worlds which are apparently tailor-made to produce people like me?"

"B- _Big X_?!"

"Oh, yes, I've just now decided that being annoying and slightly rude to Team Evil is very cool and good, and I should do it as much as possible."

Unfortunately, Vanitas didn't hear this very cool and good retort, because he was too busy cracking up at 'Big X'. "Big X! That's too good."

I blinked. "It wasn't... _that_ funny... was it?" I looked to the others, who just shrugged, apparently equally confused. "I actually thought it was kinda mediocre, and really only said it because it did in fact qualify as a riff..."

"Context," Vanitas said, finally managing to catch his breath. "You don't have it. Whew. Ah, _Big X_ -" he laughed again "- told me nothing whatsoever about you. As far as I'm concerned you're a stranger. I don't even know your name."

"Ah, well, I'm Tempest," I said. "You can call me Tempe if you like. And that's my brother Luke," I said, pointing to him.

"Now, Luke, I _was_ told about. Didn't know he had a sister, though." Vanitas paused in thought for a moment. "You know what, I will answer your question. I'm back because the Organization harvested negative emotional energy from the Noise that live in this world."

"Neato," I said, nodding. "... That explains very little."

"I'm not giving you a 101 on magical physics, _Tempe_. The negative emotional energy put me back on my feet, but I need one other thing to be complete." He raised his Keyblade and pointed it dramatically at Sora. "Ventus!"

I blinked. "I was sure you were about to say 'positive emotional energy'."

"Nope," Vanitas said. "I need the other half of my heart."

"The half that's made of positive emotional energy."

"... What's your point?"

I shrugged. "I can't tell the details without _at least_ a 101 on magical physics, but it seems obvious to me that there exists an easier way to go about this. A way that doesn't involve consuming a person."

"And why should I care?"

"Did I mention that this hypothetical way would be easier? Possibly faster? And Team Good over here would be less inclined to make it difficult?"

"Umm," Sora and Mickey both umm'd at the same time. (Luke snrk'd at this.)

"Okay, I won't speak for my friends, but _I'd_ be less so inclined."

"Actually," Sora interrupted. "I just have a question. Why did you call me Ventus?"

"I don't mean _you_ , child," Vanitas said condescendingly.

He removed his helmet.

"What in the...?!" Sora exclaimed.

"I mean _my other half_ ," Vanitas said. "Don't you remember? He's been sleeping in your heart for almost a decade."

"... Does he also look exactly like me with a dye job?"

Vanitas snickered. "Gods, no. Two people with this face is already too much."

"Don't forget Data-Sora," I chimed in.

"Who?" Sora and Vanitas asked simultaneously.

I frowned very loudly. "Okay. I roughly understand why Vani doesn't know. You have no particular reason _to_ know, aside from Big X -" (Vanitas snickered at the nickname again.) "- having some kinda supernatural power of knowing things he shouldn't, but that doesn't mean he'd tell _you_ anything. He's certainly not nice enough to just share info because he has it. But Sora not knowing...?" I shook my head. "We can talk about that later. Umm... why are we standing around talking, again?"

Vanitas shrugged. " _I'm_ standing around talking because I'm here specifically to keep you on this world as long as possible. I don't know why _you_ are all going along with it."

"Well, we're not leaving yet anyway, we've still got business here. I gotta go shopping, and then there's the other thing."

"The Point of Shadow?" Vanitas said.

I sighed. "Of course Big X told you about _those_. Just know that I dipped my soul in darkness a while back, specifically so I could fight at full force if one of our various adversaries tried anything without it counting as a light-versus-darkness clash. So... don't try anything."

Vanitas laughed. "I don't care what you do with the Points, and neither does _Big X_. The only clash we're concerned with is the big seven-on-thirteen. It might be _more interesting_ at a Point of Shadow, I'll grant. But probably more annoying, too."

"On that note... given that you _have_ your thirteen, and we have our seven - and then some, on both counts - why aren't y'all, like, goading us into the final confrontation yet?"

"I would _love_ to do that, honestly," Vanitas said, "but apparently this method requires more preparation than just throwing twenty people in an arena. At least, that's what _Big X_ tells me whenever I complain." He snickered once more. "I'm never gonna get over that nickname. It's too good."

XXXXXXXXXX

"So," Luke said, "we're going after the Point, now."

"Uh-huh. That's one of our missions," I said.

"And you think it's in Udagawa or so?"

"Radar-thing seems to be pointing that way, yeah."

Luke nodded.

A pause.

"I can't help but notice that Vanitas is still here."

"Mind your own," Vanitas snapped.

" _Why_ are we letting him hang around?"

I shrugged. "Felt like it? And he doesn't seem to be doing much of anything."

"Like I said," Vanitas said, "my mission is to stall you from leaving. Hanging around and watching you yell at each other is certainly accomplishing that."

Luke glared daggers at him. "Tempest, can you slap him with an Exit?"

"I am certainly physically capable of that... I'm not sure whether I want to."

"Seriously?!"

"He's not _doing_ anything! I'll slap him if he tries to start something, but... I don't wanna greet him with violence if I don't have to, y'know?"

"Does a teleportation spell really count as violence?" Vanitas mused.

"It does if I deliver it via a slap to your face."

"Oh, that was literal?"

"Only thing stopping me from doing it myself is that _I don't know Exit_ ," Luke grumbled.

"Yet!" I said. "Growth mindset!"

"Hmm." Vanitas hmm'd.

"What 'hmm'?" I asked, with sincere curiosity.

"Why are you doing this before your shopping, if this is the one that was secret?"

I shrugged. "If _Big X_ already told you about Points, then there's no actual secret, is there?"

"So, what, there _is_ a secret about your shopping?"

I frowned. "Well, now that you've suggested the possibility, I'm certainly gonna _act_ like it."

Vanitas leaned in real close and smirked. "Then I'll do the same."

I tried very hard to pretend I was not unsettled by this blatant invasion of my personal space. "That sounds slightly ominous!" I declared cheerfully.

Vanitas held that stare for several seconds.

Somehow, I didn't flinch.

"Huh. You are _really_ good at pretending to be unflappable," Vanitas said as he finally backed away.

"Apparently not good _enough_ , if you could tell I was pretending," I responded, shrugging.

"Soooo..." Luke interrupted, "how are we planning on getting rid of him when we have to leave?"

"Beats me," I said. "I'm sure it'll be some... epic... fun... thing."

Vanitas suddenly stopped. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"The mouse and the kid are gone."

I looked around. Sora and Mickey were, indeed, absent. "Huh. I'm gonna give Luke the credit for everything, because I was focusing on you the whole time and didn't even know they had anything planned."

"I'm gonna take the credit for everything because you're right, it was my idea."

"... So what, I've still got you two stuck here."

"Yeah, but we're not as important," I said dismissively.

"Excuse you?" Luke said, raising an eyebrow.

"No offense! But - Sora's basically Keyblade Jesus, and Mickey's the king of an entire world. ... The problems arising from that sorta encapsulating why I'm against monarchy in general and I wonder if I could convince him to start holding elections anytime soon?"

Luke and Vanitas both boggled at this tangent.

" _Yes_ , that _would_ be an awkward conversation, but the normal way monarchies become democracies is that they become terrible and get violently overthrown, so skipping that phase would save at least one generation if not several from misery at the hands of an evil king so I'd say it's worth an awkward conversation."

The boggling continued.

"Unless Mickey is immortal? That would change the situation pretty drastically, but I don't know of any evidence for that..."

"What are you _on_ , Tempe?" Vanitas asked, leaning in to look at my eyes up close.

" _Exit_." I incanted, poking Vanitas in the forehead. "Sorry," I added as he vanished in a crackle of magic.

There was a brief stunned silence. "That was _really_ well-acted," Luke finally said. "I honestly thought you were just going off on a weird tangent."

"I mean - I _was_ ," I admitted, "but _also_ , I realized midway through that if I dragged it out long enough, I could probably bait Vani into dropping his guard. And it worked! Probably won't work a second time, though. Sora and Mickey went off to seal the Point, right?"

"Right. Let's join them, shall we?"

XXXXXXXXXX

"What. The hell. Was that." (The word I used was not 'hell', but there are language standards in this medium, so that's the word I'm writing.)

"That," Joshua said, "was what happens when I spot a problem too late."

" _Did Microtransaction Girl just -_ "

"Yes. Yes she did."

" _Why?!_ "

"I expect I'll be finding out very soon."

"Are you going to need our help dealing with it?"

Joshua actually paused to consider it. "Probably not. But I appreciate the offer."

"Well, if you do decide to call on us, you know -" I stopped suddenly. "Shoot. I don't even have my phone on me. Gah, this is getting annoying. Joshua, where would I go if I wanted to buy like two dozen cheap smartphones?


	23. 20: Chapter titles are hard, okay

ATUHOR'S NOSE: 28 days. It's slower than 16, but it's not a cursed speed, it's just regular ordinary ADHD. I think I'm back... ish.

... And I suddenly remembered how Star vs. ended. (Well, I mean, it _hadn't_ ended yet as of two chapters ago, but I write slow.) Let's say... something _like_ Season 4 happened. But not _actually that_. I mean, it's AU already just because the two sentences I had already written about it contradict the whole _(*mumbles indistinctly*)_ thing. You know the one. I could retcon it, or make up an excuse, but... I don't wanna.

* * *

"So! With that accomplished, what next?" It felt like I had been dicking around in Shibuya for almost a year and I couldn't remember a darn thing. (Of course we hadn't actually been there long at all, I just have a warped sense of time.)

Luke shrugged. "We sealed the Point, but we still need to rescue Roxas. The others haven't contacted us - maybe check if they need help?"

I nodded. "You know anything about Mewni?" Luke shook his head. "Probably you should go to the Pride Lands, then. Sora's been there before and can help you out. Which I guess leaves His Majesty to accompany me to Mewni."

Mickey nodded. "I have a passing familiarity with that world."

"... I can't decide whether I'm surprised or not." _Because it's a Disney property_ , I didn't say. I still don't know if that fact even means anything anymore.

So I split the extra phones between me and Luke, he sent me another copy of that firmware update so I could get started distributing that to my half, and we all headed off.

Eventually Mickey and I arrived at Mewni. I dunno, I forget most of what happened in between; there was a lot of firmware-updating and other generic boring stuff.

Oh, one thing I do remember - I didn't just buy phones between chapters. I also bought some clothes and pins. Until now, I had only had two outfits - the clothes I had been wearing when my worlds fell to darkness, and another set borrowed from Yuffie. And the black cloak, I guess, if that counts.

My clothes from back home were _very_ much function-over-style. To put it lightly, I had a very low BRV stat back then. Yuffie's borrowed outfit, on the other hand, was much more revealing than I was really comfortable with. And cycling between only two outfits was causing them to wear out much faster than they normally would - I had magic to repair them, of course, but it could only do so much.

So buying a bunch of sensible-yet-stylish Natural Puppy clothing in Shibuya was a perfectly logical decision fueled entirely by practical needs, got it?

... The pins, on the other hand, were entirely for fun. I mean, yes, they probably did have psychs, if I ever needed to fight in the UG again. But I didn't think about that when I got them.

If you're trans and played _The World Ends with You_ , you probably noticed that the Natural Puppy logo color scheme is almost exactly the same as the trans pride flag. I checked, and it turns out that this is _not_ a coincidence - the founder of the brand is, in fact, a trans woman. So that was cool to learn. And that's why they sell trans pride flag buttons in a mid-2000s-esque culture when trans rights aren't a thing people think about much yet.

I bought twenty of them. You never know, right?

But back to the present. (Or, well, the part of the recent past which I am treating as the present for the purposes of this narrative. Obviously I'm not writing these journals in real time, y'know.)

We landed on Mewni - well, we landed on Earth, in Echo Creek, but it's specifically the Earth that's in the Mewni Constellation and not one from my home... tree... thing.

"Say, Your Majesty, how does that work, anyway? Like, obviously this isn't _the same_ Earth that I come from, but... it's the same, you know?"

Mickey actually looked uncomfortable at this question. "I'll explain that later. Right now, we should catch up with the others."

I decided not to press that. "Speaking of, who exactly did we send here, again? Yes, I know," I interjected at the look on his face, "I was there, but I was also dissociating. Refresh my memory."

"Kairi, Lea, and Aqua. And Naminé and Riku went to the Pride Lands."

I frowned. "Didn't we have... more people? Why did we split up unevenly like - you know what, never mind, it doesn't matter now." Suddenly, a bunch of Shadows sprung up around us. "... _Really_ doesn't matter now," I said, summoning Voice of the Well.

A bunch of Floods appeared after them. "Unversed, too?!" Mickey exclaimed.

The _really_ surprising part was when they started fighting each other. "Why are they...?" I trailed off. _Take advantage!_ I thought to myself. _Obviously_ , I retorted, _but run or fight?_ Something in the back of my mind flipped a coin. "Doesn't matter why, they're still dangerous and we need to take' em out. _Magnet!_ "

"Narwhal Blast!" A wave of narwhals blasted through the crowd of enemies, thinning them out greatly. I glanced towards the source of the blast to confirm - naturally, there stood Star Butterfly, one time Princess of Mewni.

I grinned. "Swirling Slicing Cyclone!" ("Isn't that just Aeroga...?" Mickey asked.)

"Mega Mushroom Destruction Blast!"

"Rising Rock Rectangle Ram!" ("That's definitely just Stonja.")

"Piledriver Panda Explosion!"

"Blinding Beneficent Bomb!" ("And that's Holy. Tempest, how long have you been thinking about Mewni-themed alternate names for all of your spells?" "Since chapter 12.")

Star smirked. "You're good, stranger. But can you beat... Spider with a Top Hat Blast!" The eponymous behatted spider coalesced into existence and blasted the remaining enemies away with its machine-gun top hat.

"Hmm... no, I don't think I have a spell of that level yet." _But I've been meaning to research a Starlight Breaker copy. That'll compete for sure, if not knocking Spidey completely out of the water._

"Ordinary karate kick!" With a flying kick, Marco finished off a Shadow that we had somehow missed before it could backstab us. "Missed one."

"Hey, it's Princess Marco!" I said.

"Hey, it's... a fan!" Marco responded, obviously not knowing my name. "Star, these creatures just keep coming. If we can't figure out how to stop them, we'll be overwhelmed!"

"Well, you're in luck," I declared. "We're here specifically to handle that problem. Or rather, we're here specifically for something completely different, but also, problems like this are our responsibility anyway." I dismissed Voice of the Well. "Name's Tempest. Tempe for short, if you like."

"Star Butterfly!"

"Mickey Mouse."

"Marco Diaz. You, uh, know I'm not _actually_ a princess, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I know, no royal authority or whatever. That's fine, monarchies are a terrible idea anyway." I carefully avoided looking at Star or Mickey when I said that.

"That's... definitely exactly what I meant when I said that," Marco said, in a tone that suggested otherwise. "... Nice pins."

"They _are_ nice pins!" I said. "I especially like this one, the transgender pride flag. I've been meaning to pick one of those up for ages, but not many places sell 'em, you know?"

"That's... neat." Marco said. "The whole. Trans. Thing. Which exists. It's neat."

"It is!" I agreed. "I gotta say, pretending to be an ordinary cis dude was _not_ fun for me, and I'm very glad that I realized I don't have to do any of that."

"Layin' it on kinda thick, there, Tempe." Star interjected.

"She is?" Marco asked.

"Maybe a little," I admitted.

"Wait, laying on _what_ , anyway?" Marco added.

I tilted my head in thought. "... Star, what exactly _is_ the situation in this department?"

Star thought about this for a moment. "Well, it's kinda like - heyyyy, wait just a minute! Why are we talking about this with you anyway? We've known you for, like, seven minutes! And also, we have shadow creatures to slay!"

"Oh, yeah, we should get on that! Umm, let's see, first things first, the probable culprit for this is an anime villain in a black hooded cloak. You seen any of those around?"

"We've seen a guy in a black hooded cloak," Marco said. "Blue hair, hangs out at the beach playing sitar. Doesn't seem that _villainous_ , but I suppose he could just be biding his time."

"Demyx." Mickey and I said simultaneously.

"Oh," I finally remembered, "some of our friends should have arrived here first to handle this; have you seen them too?" I quickly described them.

Marco and Star frowned. "No," Marco said, "nobody like that has been around here."

"That's... weird." I turned to Mickey. "That is weird, right?"

"They should have been here for quite some time now. So, yes, that is weird."

I thought for a moment. "Would the time distortion thing cause this?"

Mickey tilted his head. "Not impossible, but unlikely. We've been gone about half a day -" (Mickey had explained earlier that almost every inhabited world had very nearly the same length of day, though nobody had yet figured out why.) "- and time distortions of that magnitude only happen every hundred days or so." (A flicker of confusion in the back of my mind, which faded so quickly I immediately forgot about it.) "Either something waylaid them, or... maybe they landed elsewhere in the world?"

I frowned. "There is a _lot_ of elsewhere for them to have landed in, isn't there? Do we have..." I could just use the communicator. But I super didn't trust them now. I didn't want the Organization knowing our movements. "... _some_ method of finding or contacting them?"

"Ooh! I could use the All-Seeing Eye!" Star exclaimed.

"Isn't that spell, like-" Marco almost asked.

" _...unveil to me what is forbidden!_ " Star was already finishing.

"... super evil. Never mind."

A window opened in the air in front of Star, showing Kairi, Lea, and Aqua surrounded by Shadows.

"Well, that's bad," I said.

"You two hear something?" Lea asked.

I blinked. "Lea!" I shouted. "Can you hear me?" All three of them turned toward the window.

"Is that... _supposed_ to happen?" Marco asked.

"Ehhh," Star equivocated. "It's not _the first time_ it's happened..."

I summoned Voice of the Well and pointed it at the window. "Let's see if this works." Ironically, I hadn't actually used my Keyblade to unlock something before. But I knew how it was done. In theory.

A beam of light burst forth and a swirl of light engulfed the window as it gradually morphed into a door.

"Neat," Marco said. "Kinda complicated compared to dimensional scissors, but I couldn't have used those because I don't know where that is, so... it's a trade-off."

"All right," I said, "let's do this."

We kicked the door in and charged into the fray - I paused just a moment to note that there were no Unversed here, and then the seven of us blasted the Shadows back to Kingdom Hearts. Or wherever they go. I think that's correct.

I tossed a phone each to the three of them. "Here, these will let us communicate more securely than those... _what_ are the other ones called, anyway? I've been calling them 'linkshells' in my head, but I don't think that's actually what they are."

"No, they are," Aqua said. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"What, really?" I said, bewildered. "That's... kind of improbable. Whatever, I'll ask questions about that later. And what we're doing here is that we searched where we were gonna search and we didn't find what we hoped to find, so now we're helping out here. Also, did you see any Unversed since you landed here?"

"No, why?"

I frowned. "There were some where we landed. Weird that they'd be there but not here, but what's _double_ weird is that they were fighting the Heartless."

"So these Unversed are good guys!" Star said.

"If they were good, it wouldn't be _weird_ for them to fight the Heartless," Marco pointed out.

"Oh yeah..."

"Speaking of here and landing," I said, "where _are_ we?" Looking around, I saw tall cliffs, gloomy forest, and glowing moss that suggested the day-night cycle was out of commission.

"Not sure," Naminé said. "We figured it didn't matter that much, though, as long as we followed the tracker."

"I don't recognize this dimension," Marco said, "and I've been to a _lot_ of dimensions."

"Hmm. A multi-dimensional search space could cause troubles," I muttered. The All-Seeing Door was still open, so I decided to run a quick test.

Ninety seconds later, I re-entered the unknown dimension. "It's definitely - well, if it's not _in_ this dimension, it's closer to it than to Echo Creek."

"So, hold up, _how_ many dimensions are there?" Lea asked.

"Uhhh, wait, I know this," Star stammered.

"Dimensional researchers don't know for sure," Marco interrupted, "but definitely more than fifty and probably less than a hundred."

"Yes. What Marco said."

"Why is that lower bound so fuzzy?" I asked. "Shouldn't it just be something like 'we know of X number of dimensions and _science math reasons_ suggests _some range_ more'?"

"I asked that same question, actually," Marco said, "and it turns out that dimensions kinda... pop in and out of existence a lot."

"Oh, good, that means we can exclude any dimension newer than... uh, some date."

"Some date?" Star said. "Yeah, great job, that narrows it down to an amazing _some amount_ of them."

"It's a _known_ date!" I protested as I texted Luke. "I just... don't happen to know it myself. But I know who does." I frowned. "Sure hope we can account for the time distortion."

"Oh, don't get me started on time distortion," Marco said...

XXXXXXXXXX

 _Bzz bzz! Bzz bzz!_

Finding the Point was taking a while, so we were camping out for the night, and normally I'd sleep right through a phone vibrating noise, but I had been kinda tensely waiting for Luke to respond. Of course, he had to contact DiZ (... why did we stop calling him Ansem, again?) and I had no idea what kind of schedule _he_ was on, so it was taking a while.

This wasn't Luke, though. In fact, it wasn't any of our circle.

 _Is that the thanks I get for trying to help?_

... That was annoyingly cryptic. Who outside of our circle was trying to help? I could just ask who they were, but that seemed too predictable, so instead...

 _How did you get this number?_

 _You'll never guess._

And _that_... on second thought, was quite informative, actually. Out of everyone who might know this number even existed, only one of them didn't have an obvious method of getting it if they wanted to.

Which meant his opening text referred to...

 _So that was your doing._

 _Not very quick on the uptake, are ya?_

 _:p  
_ _But seriously, I'll be more thoughtful next time._

 _You *say* that._

 _*shrugs loudly* Well, you'll see._

 _Shrugs loudly? How's that work?_

 _Quite well, thank you. :p :p :p_

He didn't respond after that, so I set the phone down and tried to sleep.

... If the Organization's plan was to use the Point as a shield, and it was probably in this dimension rather than Marco's, why was Demyx hanging around Echo Creek?


	24. 21: Forget chapter titles - numbers only

ATUHOR'S NOSE:

Me, a fool: If I make a habit of writing every day without fail, I'll surely get back on my typical pace for my ongoing longfic!

Also me, enlightened: Wow, I have _so many_ barely-started projects I suddenly feel inspired for!

And that's why it's been 38 days.

...

Also also me, who loves terrible puns way too much: I will never apologize for anything, ever.

* * *

"No, he was definitely at the beach," Marco said. "We saw him a few times and he's never been anywhere else. I think he might _live_ there now."

I frowned. "But their plan... was to camp at the Point... to make fighting them a pain. Why is Demyx doing a different thing?"

"I dunno," Marco said. "Go ask him when we're done with this, I guess."

A direct approach. Simple and to the point. I immediately hated the idea.

"Well, we'll think of something," I said evasively. "In the meantime..." I looked up at the huge... "... what's this kind of rock formation called?" It was circular, about half the size of a football field, went pretty much straight up, and it looked like it had a flat top. (I mean, I wasn't _sure_ from this angle. But probably.)

Lea frowned. "A butte, I think. Why does that matter?"

"Because I'm going to complain vehemently about having to climb this thing in my journal, and I want to use the correct word for it."

"And we _are_ gonna have to climb it," Star said, returning from her perimeter check. "Your radar thingy was pointing directly thataway the whole time," she added, pointing to the summit of the butte.

"Can't we just _fly_ up there?" Marco complained. "You're flying right now, Star, surely we can figure something out."

"Cloudy can't carry _seven people_ , Marco! He's just a cloud!" ("I'm _doing my best_!" Cloudy interjected, ignored by all.)

"Well, no," I said, "but I can turn my Keyblade into a vehicle, and I know Aqua can, and I suspect Mickey can, and..." I paused, frowning. "There's no particular reason for Naminé and Lea not to have learned too, but I don't know if they actually did it."

"I've had a Keyblade for two days," Naminé said. "I haven't learned that particular trick yet."

"And I've known about that trick for two days," Lea said. "Nobody's had time to teach me."

"Huh. We should fix that when we get a chance."

"Like now?" Naminé said.

I thought about that. "Heck, why not. If Demyx is hanging around at the beach, there can't be anything pressing going on up there. ... He _is_ still hanging out at the beach, right?"

"Yup," Star said, showing us the scene through the All-Seeing Eye. Like she said, Demyx was just hanging out on the beach, drinking a smoothie and playing his sitar.

"That's _so weird_!" I said. "It's like he's not taking this being-evil thing seriously at all."

"Not really," Lea countered. "Demyx never took anything seriously, other than harassing Sora when he thought that might bring Roxas back." Lea frowned. "Actually, on reflection, _that's_ pretty weird of him. Guess we can ask him about that, too?"

"That is... certainly a thing that someone could do," I equivocated. "Anyway. Glider time."

XXXXXXXXXX

"... It's a _pond_?" Star said, sounding disappointed.

"Why and also how is there a pond at the top of a butte?" I wondered, approaching the pond.

The pond rose up and became a giant water-golem-thing.

"Oh," I said, leaping out of its pummeling range and summoning Voice of the Well. "Amazingly, that answers both things."

"Can you cast the spell from here?" Mickey asked.

"Oh, sure, if the water thing is stuck in the pond and has no ranged attacks whatsoever." A beat. "... Okay, I said that sarcastically but it seems to actually be the case? Who designed this encounter?"

"Demyx," literally everyone retorted.

"Oh yeah. ... Wait, _literally_ everyone? The water creature too?"

"Yyyep!" it(?) said in Demyx's voice. "And I've got good news for you - my sentinel _does_ have a ranged attack!" Which it immediately demonstrated - its left arm turned into a cannon and blasted an orb of water at me.

I blocked it, but I must have miscalculated something, because it still managed to knock me flat on my ass.

"You okay, Tempe?" Star said.

"More rattled than anything," I said, getting back to my feet. "That hit _way_ harder than I was expecting - did you put a _rock_ in there, Demyx?"

"I knew my water affinity wouldn't give me the level of power I needed here," the sentinel said, (or Demyx said, through the sentinel?) "so I teamed up with Lexy to make sure it had a solid _foundation_ , you get it?"

("Was that... a pun?" Naminé asked. "Yeah, but it was a bad reach. 2 out of 10, would not repeat." Lea answered.)

"Ahh, Lexaeus again? I've yet to win a fair fight against that guy..."

"Well, I figured, who better to stop a storm than a bulwark?"

("Cheap name reference, tortured metaphor. Referencing the rivalry they apparently have is a good move, though. 4 out of 10. Actually, 4.5.")

"Mm. Cool. Listen, any chance of stepping aside and letting us seal the Point without a fight?"

"Ah, about that - in addition to talking about its apparent lack of ranged options, the _other_ trigger for my sentinel to go into offense mode was if you had attempted the sealing spell."

"... which you can identify because _Lexaeus saw it_."

"So really, you were screwed either way. Have fun! Demyx out. Sentinel, get 'em."

And with that, the sentinel's _other_ arm turned into a cannon and it started blasting everyone.

While the rest of us were running around dodging water blasts, Marco had the sense to move _toward_ the thing and give it a roundhouse kick. Which splooshed and didn't really have much effect. "How exactly are we supposed to fight something made of liquid?!"

"I dunno!" I said. "I'm used to video game logic where I can just hit 'em until they die!" While I was saying this, the sentinel turned an arm into a hammer to knock Marco into the air, to conveniently land right next to me. "Cure, also."

" _Thunder_ ," Aqua intoned, striking the beast with a burst of electricity. "Magic. The answer is that we use magic. We all have it."

"I don't!" Marco protested.

I glanced down at my Keyblade. "Y'know what?" I unclipped the foxfire candle Keychain and let it revert to a Kingdom Key. "Borrow this," I said, holding it out to Marco. "It should hit the thing fine." _Also, dear spirits of whatever, if I can make this count as a proper Bequeathing just by intending it real hard, please note that I am doing that._

Marco took hold of the Keyblade, but hesitated. (Just in case, I focused on my intention again while we were both holding it.) "You sure? Then _you_ won't have a weapon."

"I learned how to cast magic without that, I'll do fine," I said, letting go of the handle so Marco was holding the Keyblade entirely without my assistance. " _Barrier_ ," I added, summoning a shield to block a water blast the sentinel had fired at us while it thought we were distracted. "See? I'm fine. Let's fight this thing instead of standing around."

"Hey Tempe," Star interrupted, "didn't you say these Points _explode_ if there's an epic clash between good and evil on top of them?"

"Light and darkness, technically, but..." I frowned. "I could _feel_ it straining, last time." Something pinged in the back of my mind and I reached out toward the water sentinel. " _Libra_. ... Yeah, this thing isn't light _or_ dark. We can pummel it freely."

"Sweet."

XXXXXXXXXX

The battle that followed was truely epic and legendary and someone else will have to write about it because I can't do combat scenes. I wouldn't do it justice. Yep. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

"Y'know," Star said, brushing fragments of rock out of her hair, "I've been wondering since the moment Lea said this rock formation was called a 'butte'... What _kind_ of rock is it made out of?"

"Beats me," Marco said, "I'm no rock expert."

"Looks... metamorphic," Naminé said, inspecting a good-sized chunk. "I think. Kinda stripey?"

"None of us know much about rocks, do we?" I asked. Nopes all around.

"So..." Lea mused. "The Points in other worlds... weren't they just in random nondescript places?"

I counted on my fingers as I listed them off. "Radiant Garden's was some plaza garden thing, The Neath's was some random island," (Lea nodded, as these supported his statement) "Shibuya's was at CAT's mural, _the_ mural where several important things happened," (Lea started as this did _not_ continue the pattern) "and this one, in some random wilderness dimension on some random butte. So, three out of four."

"Three outta - first off, Tem, my thought was that a butte _isn't_ all that random and nondescript," Lea responded. "And second, this is not just a random wilderness dimension. Haven't you been looking around?"

"Not in the slightest," I admitted, looking around. "Why?"

Lea paused a moment, presumably to give me a chance to see it myself. "Ruins. Long, long reclaimed by nature, but ruins nonetheless. There used to be people in this dimension."

Looking around, it was a lot more obvious now that I knew it was there to see.

"Y'know, that makes sense. Didn't Nox's Report say something about people being subconsciously attracted to these Points...?"

"You're asking the wrong guy, Tem," Lea said. "Dunno who Nox is, but I haven't seen their reports."

"Right, right." As far as I knew, Luke and DiZ were the only ones other than me to even know those reports existed. ... Until just now, I guess. Well. I don't think they were an actual _secret_. Actually, their significance was completely lost on me at the moment.

"So..." Marco said, "... what's the significance of this, then?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea," I admitted. "Let's just seal the Point and go back to Echo Creek."

"And talk to Demyx?" Aqua asked.

A beat. I sighed, defeated. " _Yes_ , I suppose we can just talk to him."

"Why are you so averse to that idea, Tempest?" Kairi asked.

"It's too _simple_! I was hoping to come up with something..." _More complicated_ , I didn't say. "... more effective."

XXXXXXXXXX

I flopped down onto the empty beach chair next to Demyx's. "Hey there, guy. ... _Is_ 'guy' accurate? I shouldn't be assuming." I added as an afterthought.

"Eh, maybe," Demyx said. "Stuff I've been through and stuff I expect to be through... who knows what effect that has on a mind?"

"Very cryptic. Hey, speaking of cryptic, what exactly was the deal with this?"

Demyx shrugged. "Can't a may-or-may-not-be-a-guy want to take a day off at the beach sometimes?"

"Half-assing it like this goes against every possible motivation I'm aware -" And then I halted abruptly as I realized I had used the word _motivation_ to refer to _Demyx_. "Actually, strike that. It all makes perfect sense now."

"Ah, good." Demyx sipped from a smoothie that I was pretty sure hadn't been there when I initially arrived. "So, my mission here is officially remains on until y'all actually leave the world. D'you mind staying for another day or two? This is a _really_ nice beach."

"We kinda really do want Roxas back as soon as possible," I said.

"Ah. That's a shame."

"Buuuut, I don't think it'd be a problem if I lagged behind for a bit. I can think of a thing or two I'd like to do here before leaving. That 'y'all' implies what it sounded like, right?"

"Yep! My higher-ups might tell me to get my rear in gear if they find out I'm interpreting the order as an excuse to slack off, but only if they notice."

"Nice... Feel free to take any excuse you can find to slack off."

"Oh, I've been doing _that_ for longer than you can imagine."

XXXXXXXXXX

Later that night, I got a text from Lea.

It consisted solely of a link to the Wikipedia article for "Gneiss".

The pictures in that article looked _remarkably_ like the rocks the water golem had been firing at us.

I facepalmed as another text came in.

 _The *really* annoying part is that that's just geologically normal enough that I don't feel justified yelling at a hypothetical creator for manipulating the universe in service of a bad pun._

 _Same, but for my part, I'm gonna do it anyway._


End file.
